For the first time in my life, I had seen the movie before reading the book and was both surprised at how closely the movie follows the book in some respects and how much they have changed (minor) details in other respects where I can't figure out the reasons for those changes...

In the book, we follow Ove, recently become a widower through the death of his beloved wife Sonja and also an early pensioner against his will, through his daily life and his attempts on suicide to join his love in the afterlife and stop feeling useless, or without a function, as he would put it.
Ove, on the surface, isn't a very likable man, quite the textbook philistine, and absolutely devoted to routine and order. The fact that his wife is dead is only revealed by and by, as she is so very present still for Ove. His best-expressed emotion is anger - though his actions usually betray him to be far more friendly, helpful and social-minded than he would seem. I believe it is because of this that the reader soon begins to like and sympathize with him despite his many excentricities and shortcomings.

What I liked best about Ove is that, while he seems quite the philistine and not overly educated at the same time, he completely lacks prejudice against the "typical enemies" of this "class": racism, homophobia, etc. He is befriended by his Persian neighbour and her daughters without such great difficulties and even takes in a boy whose coming-out did not go too well, going as far as trying to reconcile him to his father. And, of course, there is the battered and streetwise cat he is forced to take in and begins to care for almost on the spot. (Mostly he gives other people's interference or the memory of his wife as the motor for his good deeds - but this seems like a lie he tells himself not to seem soft.)

All in all, the book makes a very entertaining read, with a more complex sense of humour than the movie and also more dark-humoured moments when it comes to his wish to die.
In the end, death finds him - but only when he has stopped looking for it and found a new meaning to his life which is more than being there for his wife.