Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
(Format used for this book: Audiobook)
It is impossible for me to read a book written by Fredrik Backman and not feel EVERY SINGLE FEEL.
Alllll the emotions happen, yall.
I mean, the guy makes me laugh…then cry…then think all the deep life thoughts.
Every time I have finished one of his books, I feel like I need to give everyone I love a hug and tell them how much I appreciate them…and at the same time sit down and contemplate what I’m really doing with my life purpose and how I am serving the greater good of humanity.
This book was no different.
All that happened…AGAIN.
Here is the official summary of the book:
“Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world.
Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.
Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious times.”
One of my favorite formats for a novel is when the author tells the story from multiple character’s perspectives. There are a BUNCH of interesting people you get to know while reading this book and the author jumps back and forth between their narratives in an effortless and fascinating way.
The unifying theme though for all these interconnecting stories is the premise of human connection.
How deeply important it is…how much we need it…how much we desire it…and how truly connected we ACTUALLY ARE to each other in ways we don’t always see or expect.
As more is revealed about each character’s life as the pages progress, the author brings to our attention over and over again that people’s stories are NEVER what you think they are….once we get past the surface layers and the titles and the false perceptions and stereotypes we hold, there is ALWAYS ALWAYS more to their story than we originally see or understand.
As I said above, I can not read Mr Backman’s work without feeling EVERYTHING.
He uses simple, everyday language in all his writings…but DANG if he doesn’t know how to be POWERFUL.
Just one singular sentence can be a deep emotional gut punch…sometimes having you on the floor sobbing with realizations about yourself…. or sometimes laughing at the realness of the words…. or sometimes receiving a sudden understanding about the world.
Some examples:
“Some people accept that they will never be free of their anxiety, they just learn to carry it.”
“It’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.”
“Something my dad says…He says you end up marrying the one you don’t understand. Then you spend the rest of your life trying.”
“The truth, of course, is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”
“One of the most human things about anxiety is that we try to cure chaos with chaos.”
“You can always tell by the way people who love each other argue: the longer they’ve been together, the fewer words they need to start a fight.”
“You don’t have to like all children. Just one. And children don’t need the world’s best parents, just their own parents. To be perfectly honest with you, what they need most of the time is a chauffeur.”
“Because that was a parent’s job: to provide shoulders. Shoulders for your children to sit on when they’re little so they can see the world, then stand on when they get older so they can reach the clouds, and sometimes lean against whenever they stumble and feel unsure.”
“…the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works.”
“But if there’s one thing modern life and the Internet have taught us, it’s that you should never expect to win a discussion simply because you’re right.”
“Sadly Anna-Lena was about as good at whispering as she was at thinking quietly, so it was pretty much the sort of shouted whisper that’s the equivalent of a fart in an airplane that you think won’t be noticed if you let it out a little bit at a time. You never manage to be as discreet as you imagine.”
And these are just a handful, yall….You could totally randomly open up to any page of this book and find a gem. For reals.
The topics that are addressed and dealt with and processed in this story include parenthood, marriage, aging, loneliness, identity, depression, purpose, careers, empathy and of course as the title says…anxiety.
These are all heavy things and there is plenty of heaviness in the book…but there is also plenty of lightness too…I don’t know how he creates such a perfect equation of both, but he DOES.
Even though you read about heavy things, you don’t finish the book feeling heavy…..you feel HOPEFUL.
Also….amongst all this human emotional exploration and relationship connection in the story, there is ALSO an air of suspense….I definitely am not saying WHY but that piece of the novel was an entertaining surprise.
How I loved this book, yall….I really did.
If you haven’t read any of this author’s work, this would be a fabulous one to start with. And if you HAVE read him and enjoy his work as much as I do, then you will SO love this too.
(BTW….I listened to it in audio form and the narrator was SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD. She gave each of the PLETHORA of characters their very own unique and distinct voice….I don’t know how she kept track of them all but they were just PERFECTION.)