On the HahaFiction shelf
The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
Audiobook available · 11 hr 53 min
Nombeko Mayeki has a gift for numbers and few prospects in apartheid-era Soweto. Her escape to Sweden leaves her caught up in a nuclear mix-up, with a secret service pursuing her and the Swedish king’s safety in her hands.
From the publisher’s blurb
“Just because the world ignores you, doesn’t mean you can’t save it . . .”Read the full description at Fourth Estate / HarperCollins
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What makes it funny?
Nombeko has little patience for officials who assume she is stupid. In the opening, she corrects the man who keeps getting her age wrong and answers his complaint about the latrine smell with a blunt explanation of what latrines contain. Readers in book groups also praise the story and characters, recommending it as a change of pace after heavier books.
The comedy at work
Jonasson builds elaborate trouble out of missing paperwork: a twin whose birth was never registered and a bomb nobody officially built. The people with authority keep making mistakes that the supposedly insignificant Nombeko must handle.
Try this if…
For readers who enjoy a capable underdog caught in escalating international farce. Book-group recommendations pair it with Jonasson’s The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.
Good to know
The opening includes racist language and apartheid oppression, along with addiction, bereavement and bodily-waste jokes. The dry delivery can be very casual about suffering.
A few distinguishing details
- A mathematically gifted cleaner in a nuclear predicament
- A twin and a bomb that officially do not exist
More funny adventure
Sources & further reading
- The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden — Blackstone Library
Publisher
- The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden — HarperReach
Publisher
- Kirkus review: The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
Review
- Reader discussion: The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
Reader discussion
- Fourth Estate: The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
Publisher
- Opening extract: The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
Reading sample
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