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Big in Sweden

Sally Franson

Start date: October 30, 2024

Finish date: November 12, 2024

Why we're reading this: Big in Sweden is Books & Bites' November selection! This book club will be held in person at The Walnut r…more
[close] Big in Sweden is Books & Bites' November selection! This book club will be held in person at The Walnut restaurant located at 1417 Walnut St. on Tuesday, 11/12 at 6:30 PM. Visit our website or call 515-283-4152 to register or for more details. Registration is required for this program

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What Members Thought

Aug 13, 2025 Becky rated it liked it

Shelves: travel, fiction, history, romance, humor, social-justice

I adored this story, the best book I have read this year. It has characters so deeply drawn that you both love and hate most of them over the course of the story. Consistent exposure to the good, the bad, and the ugly that is Sweden in its historical context prevails. The Americans in Sweden are exposed to their blatant misconceptions about that country, and humor lightens their confusions facing the reality of “reality” TV.

As the story begins Pauline is one unhappy Minneapolis resident. She’s a I adored this story, the best book I have read this year. It has characters so deeply drawn that you both love and hate most of them over the course of the story. Consistent exposure to the good, the bad, and the ugly that is Sweden in its historical context prevails. The Americans in Sweden are exposed to their blatant misconceptions about that country, and humor lightens their confusions facing the reality of “reality” TV.

As the story begins Pauline is one unhappy Minneapolis resident. She’s a guidance counselor at Prestige Prep, grudgingly guiding rich kids into Ivy League colleges if possible. She lives with her methodical software engineer boyfriend Declan, silently going crazy while she acts impetuously (to his chagrin). She hates her preacher father who suddenly left home with his gay boyfriend. She hates her mother who speaks incessantly about her cultish compound in another state and her horse Chester. She hates her sister Else, an evangelical christian. She hates her four years of group therapy under a patient woman named Karen Hamburger (of all things)!

Because she is of Swedish heritage, she is selected to be one of the eight American participants in a Swedish reality TV show called “Svridge och Mig” this season. It is filmed for three months in Sweden and she “earns” only a per diem. If she is the winner, the reward will be to meet her Swedish “family tree” family. The “Svridge och Mig” TV show is real. Author Sally Franson participated in it in the past.

The days in Sweden transform Pauline. Near the end of the book she finds a “smultronstalle” or “wild strawberry place”, a place to lie on your back and dream and eat wild strawberries. But the translation is not adequate because it does not have a big enough meaning. It is also any place that gives you a feeling of quiet and ecstasy. And couldn’t we all use a little more quiet and ecstasy? What Pauline finally realizes is that “because of everything that happened to us, everything that came before, we had to try. We had to try to do better. We could not choose much about this world, but we could choose, every day, who we wished to become by the things we choose to do.”

A great book!
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Jan 13, 2024 Kourtney marked it as to-read

Mar 05, 2024 Sara Heijerman marked it as to-read

Jan 27, 2025 Sadie rated it liked it · review of another edition

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