Reviews

"But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well.

There'll be another one along tomorrow."

Fredrik Backman is a quiet and unassuming author. His books are mundane yet each book manages to peel back my skin and assess me in ways I didn't even think. He manages to pull out every hope, thought, and insecurity and piece it together into a beautifully written book that I will never stop thinking about.

How foolish of me to lose faith in Backman as I thought this book would be a four-star at best. Extra points to his translator, Neil Smith for carrying over the emotions from the original language, Swedish, into English for my eyes to behold.

Anxious People is a story on community, quiet lives, and safety. Told in two different timelines this story will keep you guessing until the end, yet falling in love with both Backman's writing and mind, as well as the characters he's conjured up. The present timeline follows two policemen trying to solve the case of a missing bank robber turned hostage keeper and the past timeline follows the hostages and the bank robber as they explore who each other is.

As the novel unfolds, you learn there is more to it than meets the eye: reflections on getting old, being a parent, being a kid, being a partner, and most of all being human. As we read this book, we learn that everything is eventually connected.

I don't think I'll ever get over this book, let alone get over Backman. I've subconsciously put off reading his books because I don't know when I'll get another one. He manages to evoke so much emotion in such little time and makes me care about characters I'll never meet again but hope to pass by years down the road.

Goodbye to this book, I envy those who will read it for the first time.

xx

kahaaniwali_09's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

WHAT A READ THIS ONE HAS BEEN.

even if the world ends tomorrow, I will plant an apple tree today.

Very rarely you find a story that's full of humanity as well as funny and filled with hope and optimism and future.

I love how the characters are interconnected, the story is interwoven and the plot-twists are brilliantly executed.

I'll be reading it again, soon. (And everytime I feel low.)

Favourite Quote-

They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.

That's the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between two people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people's.

The most expensive thing you can buy in the most densely populated places on the planet is distance.

Characters:

Jim & Jack (Father-Son) - Police officers -- Jack who saw the man jumping off the bridge but couldn't do anything but save a teenage girl jumping off the week the following week.

Hostages: (apartment viewers)

Anna Lena & Roger
Ro & Julia
Zara -- ( is carrying the weight of the letter from the past 10 years of the guy of jumped off the bridge & is taking therapy from the girl who didn't jump off the bridge the following week)
Estelle (& Knut) -- stopped smoking the day the man jumped off the bridge
The Rabit (Lennart) -- Brought by Anna Lena to make her husband happy
The Hows Trick agent

The Bank Robber -- parent of a monkey and a frog

Nadia -- the psychologist who tried to jump off the bridge but a guy saved her.
Last but definitely not the least -- THE BRIDGE

mhtracy's review

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5.0

"Are you seriously googling 'what should you do in a hostage situation'?" "I might be."

happylilkt's review against another edition

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3.0

"This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it's always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being a human is."

Jack: Do you remember anything about his appearance?
London: That's such a superficial question! You've got a really sick binary view of gender, yeah?
Jack: I'm sorry. What was your first impression of the bank robber?
London: Okay, my first "impression" was that the "bank robber" seemed to be a complete moron.
Jack: I'll interpret that as suggesting that it's perfectly okay to have a binary attitude to intelligence.
London: What?
Jack: Nothing.

The first half of the book was a lot of fun—in the second half it didn't fully lose its charm, but it DID seem a little too tidy and sentimental to be really spectacular.

I really like Backman's humor and optimism, but sometimes I wish he would show a little more restraint and not connect the dots so precisely. Give me (the reader) something to do with your story. Don't interpret and synthesize it all for me! Do you even need me? This reader likes to feel necessary.

In spite of these relatively minor complaints, it was an enjoyable read and I enjoyed the light handling of heavy topics and the wry humor.

content warning:

Spoiler

suicide, dishonesty, terrorism, grief, divorce, infidelity, addiction, codependency, criminal behavior / intent

xlpver's review against another edition

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Loveable characters? No

2.0

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