The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared: Jonas Jonasson (A book by an author whose first and last name start with the same letter)

This was a delightful read. I can't remember the last time I read a book that was so light and fun, but also extremely captivating and enjoyable. I could put this book down if I needed to, but I definitely didn't want to.

Allan is such a fantastic character, and he really shows readers how to live life to the fullest. He's so angry about still being around at 100, then to have to go to a birthday party for himself makes matters worse, so he just climbs out his window. Why not? He says early on in the book "When life has gone into overtime it's easy to take liberties," and that struck me. It makes sense, right? When you get older, it's easier to bend the rules a little bit. I watch my wonderful grandmother live this out. She says whatever she wants, does whatever she wants, everybody else be darned. One of the perks of growing old is having less people to answer to, I guess.

But as I read the book and learned of Allan's early life, I realized that for him, it was always easy to take liberties. He never answered to anyone but himself. He never did anything he didn't want to do, and he never let anyone tell him what to do. Even when he was arrested and sent to a labor camp with a thirty year sentence, he spent five years there, working hard and enjoying the free room and food before he got tired of not having anything to drink, and so he left. 

I appreciated the wide array of characters that Jonasson brought to the table. From Stalin to Sonya the elephant, each character added humor and fun to the story.

There were a lot of political sections that I skimmed through because I don't get or care for those, but it's easier to skim through those sections when the main character also has no tolerance for political conversation, which is funny considering how much of his life was dealing with politics. As the narrator says, "politics was not what interested Allan most in the world," so he just doesn't put up with it, and he even goes so far as to change sides midway through a war, and of course, that works out perfectly for him. The politics help show that Allan really is just a spontaneous, easy-going guy who isn't afraid to take liberties, have no plans, and go with the flow. 

I think the thesis of this book is when Allan says this: "You'll see that things will turn out like they do, because that is what usually happens-almost always, in fact." And things just do, from page one to page 384.

This is definitely a book everyone should read, if only for a few laughs and a fun ride through a simple man's life. I quite enjoyed it.