The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared | Jonas Jonasson | Review

The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared | Jonas Jonasson | Review

• Monday, 10 February 2014

This book starts out as you would expect by reading the title, Allan Karlsson, the one hundred year old man climbs out a window and disappears on the day of his 100th birthday. This leading him into a rather interesting and twist turning adventure, filled with criminals, murders, a suitcase of cash and lots of new friends. As all of this unfolds we find out that this is definitely not Allan's my interesting of life changing adventure that he has had in his life.

When I first began reading this, someone said to me that they gave up half way through and really didn't enjoy it, which obviously is not the review I was hoping for. I'd spotted this book (or rather the cover) in a bookstore a few months before and it had immediately caught my up, the cover along with the intriguing title. I'd never read a book about someone that old before!

I found the structure of the story structure really interesting as we were transported from the present to the past before eventually at the end of the book the past caught up with the present. I really enjoyed discovering information about Allan through the retelling of his life and what a life it was! Allan seemed to of met every important person in the world, visited all major countries and now speaks multiple language due to his vast amounts of travel.

I did find however that at times there were just too many names, places and events to keep track of, especially when someone pops back up 50 pages and later and I found myself thinking I can't remember why you were relevant. So although it was interesting and enjoyable to read his past, remember all the events and names was tricky and somewhat off putting.

Allan was a really interesting and unique character, he was clever and witty and strangely likable even if he did seem to lack emotion through the majority of the book. The other characters were diverse, interesting and I definitely would not have thrown them together but that was what made the tale so different.

I would recommend the book, especially if you like history because Alan has seen a lot of events in the past 100 years! The only reason this book does not get 5 stars is because of the overwhelming amount of names and events which my brain could not quite keep up with!

This post was written by regular reviewer Laura, get to know her here.
Image from Goodreads