The Deal of a Lifetime

A life for a life is not the same as a death for a death. The woman in the gray sweater told him that.

If you're anything like me and you don't really get the appeal of holiday books, then that's great, because other than one mention in the novella (more of a short story, really) of it being Christmas Eve morning, this could easily have taken place at any time of year.

The guy who's telling the story, he's a real asshole. He sneers at happy people, was a lousy absentee father who still can't relate to his now-grown son, and thinks he's way better than everyone else. (Summarizing, since I've already returned the book to the library: “There are only people above you, that you want something from, and people below you, whom you trample on to get what you want. I worked to make sure that there was no one else above me.”) Obsessed with his legacy, and having to come to terms with what it would mean to lose everything, and why it just might be worth losing everything.

I enjoyed it. I didn't love it as much as I did Ove, nor did it rip me to pieces like Beartown and And Every Morning did. But not everything can or should reduce one to a puddle.