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3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
2,113 global ratings
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4 star
24%
3 star
17%
2 star
9%
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old lady fun read little old league of pensioners broke all the rules well written senior citizens lady who broke book club laugh out loud old folks year old climbed out the window old people nursing home man who climbed easy read looking forward assisted living get away
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Tina
2.0 out of 5 stars How Can Such a Promising Premise...
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2017
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...go so wrong? I dunno, but this novel manages it.

Five little old people decide to embark on a life of crime in order to fund a better lifestyle for themselves and other elderly folks. They manage to swipe two priceless masterpieces from the national art gallery. They collect a ransom. They also rob a money-transport truck. They get away from both police and the mafia. And they get away with the crimes. What could possibly go wrong in the telling of this tale?

Well, one could become so repetitive that readers want to gouge out their eyes. One could make every other living human in the story as dumb as a box of hammers. And one could stretch credulity beyond the point of breaking. All these reasons are a part of this novel. But what really made me want to hurl my Kindle at the wall was the repetitive use of the term "Zimmer frame," which appeared 77 times. One and a half stars.
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SassyPants
TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE
1.0 out of 5 stars I was so bored I skimmed the last half
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2018
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I really hate to pan a book, but this one was painful to read. It sounded so promising and had the potential to be sweet and funny. But it was so long and drawn out. And it was not funny. As I was reading, I kept thinking that this may have been better as a 90 minute movie with a lot of slap stick comedy and quirky character actors.

Martha Andersson and her four friends live in a retirement home that is more interested in saving money than in caring for the residents. Fed up with budget cuts, Martha and her friends decide to escape. They lodge at a very fancy hotel and plan a robbery at a nearby art museum. Their goal is to ransom the paintings. Their other goal is to get caught and spend some time in prison, where they believe the conditions are better than at the retirement home. All goes mostly as planned except they lose the paintings and half of the ransom money. There are multiple mishaps and something involving the Yugoslavian mafia, a hotel maid, and the nurse at the retirement home. Once the mafia surfaced, I started skimming.

I bought this book because it was compared to A Man Called Ove, Where’d You Go Bernadette, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. This book is none of those things. It is a very watered down version of A Man Called Ove at best. The writing is basic, the story is not interesting, it was not funny, and I could have edited out about 200 pages. For wit, insight, and charming characters you would be better off reading anything by Fredrik Backman.
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a girl is Not no one
1.0 out of 5 stars False Advertising
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2017
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Advertising this book to be compared to the likes of Fredrik Backman's novel A Man Called Ove (5 star rating) is a flat out lie. This author does not compare with his style of story telling. The book is a bust. Don't even bother with it. Not funny, not enlightening, not relatable (no matter how old you may or may not be, and it is not plausible. I'm beginning to think it has no point. There is a part where one of the characters says he is bored. I said, Me too. I'm on chapter 74 with 20 pages left.
The front cover says, "The Funniest Book This Year" - Ramilien Magazine (Norway.) Makes me question the lack of Norwegians comedians. I laughed once and that was the first chapter and the only reason I laughed was when I stopped reading and tried to imagine someone actually doing it.
The only reason I'm finishing this book is because it was chosen for our book club (so sorry I nominated it.) I wouldn't recommend this book to my worse enemy.
That's a pretty harsh review. Perhaps if I hadn't been told it was a funny book and compared to the likes of Fredrik Backman, I would not have reacted with such heat. I stand by what I said this book is not. The book is actually more like an over the top dull cozy mystery where the main characters are the actual crooks. At 400 pages, it is way too long.
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Linda Laye
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun, sassy
Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2016
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I thought this to be a delightful read. Fun, sassy, a quirky romp. It was a fast read; I found myself zipping through the pages, cheering the elderly characters fighting for independence and reveling in mischief.... However, being of the age considered "elderly" myself, I had to laugh at the "old lady" on the cover, and at the age the author describes as "old." Catharina Ingleman-Sundberg must be so young that anyone over 60 is, in her eyes, seen as being somewhere in their 80's... But I loved it all, anyway. A gifted writer, and a charming story.
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PocahontusI didn't order or receive this
5.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed this very much
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2017
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I am a little old lady myself. Sometimes we don 't get the respect we deserve. I couldn't go to the length these oldies did But I have felt like hitting a few young crazies over the head with a board. What has happened
to respect for the elderly?
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Hank Lajoie
5.0 out of 5 stars Robin Hood With A Twist
Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2017
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All one had to understand when reading this novel is that crime does not pay ... wait a minute. That’s not quite right. Crime for this bunch of residents of a senior home paid very well. The secret to their success is a daring and scheming lady who convinced her friends that prisons offered better accommodations than their nursing home. Then, she devised a series of criminal activities that would land them in jail, but that was temporary. While succeeding at that, they also acquired considerable wealth under Martha’s planning and execution, flying off at the end to an enviable retirement. The next scheme was to hit Las Vegas and the aptly named League of Pensioners was off and running again. This is entertaining humor and the future books in the series offer the promise of more to come.
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Shirley Y. Thomas
3.0 out of 5 stars Could and should have been told in 200 pages
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2018
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I’d prefer to be able to rate this book 2 1/2 stars, if I could. The language is a bit awkward which I put down to its probably having been translated from Swedish into English. It’s a one punch line joke told repeatedly. Five feisty seniors embark on a crime spree out of boredom and with the goofy notion that prison would be more agreeable than their old pensioners’ home. You will have to suspend belief to buy into their art heist. But more than that, you will have to be satisfied with meager pickings as only the five elderly characters are even minimumly developed. I like having elderly people as the focal or principal figures in a book, but every other character is totally without character, in a manner of speaking. I’m 65% through the book and am tired of waiting for the laugh-out-loud parts described by another reviewer here. The book isn’t terrible but 2 1/2 Stars, tops.
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Top reviews from other countries

Rambler
2.0 out of 5 stars Tedious
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2017
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So disappointed with this book. I'm going to be generous and give it two stars as this may be down to the translation. It reads like it has been written by a child using extremely basic language. The first chapter seemed so full of promise, both humorous and with something to say about how older people are viewed by western society, but it went downhill fast from there. A lot of people have compared this book with The 100 year old man who climbed through the window and disappeared. To those who haven't read The 100 year old man, etc., I suggest you do and then compare the two books. For those that have read it and not yet read The little old lady who broke all the rules, I suggest you don't bother!
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Aurora
3.0 out of 5 stars Probably better in the original language
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 4, 2014
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I found this book something of a problem. On the one hand it is quite a scathing indictment of the conditions in which elderly people appear to be expected to live in many countries, on the other hand, it does become quite tedious at times. Sadly I didn't find the promised humour, but I did admire the determination of the League of Pensioners to break out of their prison like old people's home and loved the idea of them living the high life in the best suite in a luxury hotel. That they went on to commit crime to fund a more lavish lifestyle and embrace freedom, was the premise of the book. If I was being pernickety I could pick all sorts of holes in the planning and execution of the crimes but a group of near-octogenarians surely can't be expected to think of everything can they? They were more than aware that they would be sent to prison, but as they subscribed to the commonly held theory that prisoners are better looked after than most other people in society, that was part of their plan. Sadly they discovered that prison wasn't quite the cushy life they had hoped for, but it certainly didn't stop them, it just made them take more care.

The idea behind this book is enticing but sadly it just didn't sparkle, but I am willing to believe that the humour was lost in the translation from the original Swedish.
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HSA
4.0 out of 5 stars Nice
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 28, 2020
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Before this one I read ‘The Hundred Year Old Man Who Jumped Out Of The Window and Disappeared’ and I couldn’t read this one without comparing. Both of the books were written by Swedish authors and the main characters are old people.

I loved ‘The Hundred Year Old Man’ and because of that had similar expectations for this one even though written by different authors.

I laughed at this one too and it was quite fun to read an interesting crime. I would suggest this to read.
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Surbcru
4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful romp.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 29, 2019
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Wonderful romp, but too long. This story tells of a group of pensioners escaping a retirement home with restrictive rules, having a ball in a posh hotel and stealing 2 paintings worth millions from an art gallery. It's really fun and pretty pacey with several plot twists to keep up your interest. It just could have done with being a bit shorter. There's kind of two stories here that needed some quality editing into a couple of books.
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Goater10
1.0 out of 5 stars Not for me!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 7, 2017
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This is either poorly written or poorly translated. Either way, it's a woeful copy of a Jonas Jonasson book. Whereas they are funny and inventive, this feels formulaic, slow and exceptionally repetitive. Dreadful.
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