Martha Anderson had saved and planned for her retirement very carefully. So, when it came time to move into Diamond House, the retirement home that she had arranged, she was settled and excited.
Everything was going as planned right up until a big corporation bought Diamond House and decided to downsize and cut costs. No longer were there freshly made meals cooked right in the home’s kitchen (they had been replaced by frozen pre-packaged meals), daily outings or cake with their afternoon tea.
Being marginalized and pushed aside was not what Martha had saved and paid for. Seventy-nine-year-old Martha starts to dream of escaping the boring, dingy life of the retirement home.
With no intention of spending the rest of her life confined to an armchair, she enlists the help of her four best friends — a.k.a. the League of Pensioners — to resist the new rules imposed upon them. As the elderly friends become more daring, their rebellious activities escalate, so much so that they decide, after watching a documentary on the Swedish prison system, that they would be better off in prison and devise a plan to get themselves there.
Through a series of mishaps, successes and amusing adventures, we follow this group of pensioners in Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg’s novel The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules, as they outrun the law and trouble make their way to infamy.
Not letting their walkers stand in their ways, sometimes using them to appear helpless, they are out to prove that you are never too old to break the rules.
This is a genuinely heart-warming, quirky and fun story about growing old gracefully and at times not so gracefully. These five ‘criminals’ will become your friends as you read this book and share their thoughts, worries and triumphs.
Being the realist that I am, I found some parts of this book pretty implausible, but I think that’s what fun about it. This book is by no means a must read, but I enjoyed it and think you will too. 3/5.
