Backman does it again! This time through a bank robbery turned hostage situation gone wrong! This book was FUNNY. I felt like I was reading iterations of Larry David. And then it was whole heartedly, not funny, and deep. I felt all of the emotions while reading this. I think it is important to note that this does NOT take place in America, where policing looks very different. Any Backman fans should pick this up, and if you haven't read him yet, now is the time!!

I am not sure how I would rate this book. It is a comedy, which I tend to have difficulty with this genre. I almost abandoned it a couple of time. However, I decided to not abandon it and finished it. It was a really sweet story. In a way it reminded me Ove, that kind of sweet. Character development was excellent.

Anxious People is the fifth book I've read by Fredrik Backman. It is his newest release, which I found on NetGalley (thank you), and I would definitely encourage others to read it. Backman is one of those authors who was meant to be an author -- he has a deep understanding of human nature, knows how to build suspense and emotion, and includes so many surprises in the plot. He also ensures you have a book hangover for days after finishing his work!

A bank robber who really never meant to be a bank robber ends up escaping and holding a group of people hostage in an apartment viewing. It's all accidental, and the anxiety we see covers a cast of about ten main characters, each who comes at the story with a very different perspective. The tale weaves in and out, revealing connections and history, all the while moving the police interviews forward. The bank robber was never found. None of the hostages are talking about what happened in the end. And the two policemen seem to be at odds over who was responsible for which piece of the investigation. Something is definitely going on below the surface.

When I began reading, it wasn't an immediate love. I found it choppy and meandering without enough clarity for me to latch on to. I later realized that was intentional and necessary. I should've known better in the beginning, as I was hesitating to read it the second day. While I adored three of his past books, one wasn't a good match, so I worried this was gonna end up that same way. Trust me, hang on... while there are a few sections that you can tell were intentionally confusing (not the best tool for an author to choose, but one that can work well in limited quantities), for the most part, it's very straightforward. It's just a matter of reading between the lines and figuring out what isn't being said.

Imagine you are held hostage. The gun appears fake. The bank robber's story is an emotional one. You've got your own issues to deal with. They're all neurotic in their own ways... would you let the bank robber get away with it? No harm was done, other than the fear you might be hurt. But based on the way the events unfold, there really wasn't any danger, it seemed... so... maybe you might say "Let the bank robber go" if things turned out the same way for you. I don't know... I'm pretty big on people being held accountable for their actions. Not only did the bank robber try to rob a bank, fail, and then escape, but the bank robber also waved a gun at 7 or 8 people in an apartment viewing down the block and basically held them hostage. So that's two bad things, which means it's really a bit of an innate thing. That said, it was all for the same reason, and potentially a good one, but still.... I ramble. Backman does that to you.

My biggest concern was the way many of the other people handled the situation. All a little contrived to some degree, but still entertaining and quite real in many aspects. I considered pushing up to a 4.5, but there were too many plot items that just didn't add up enough for me. So... I still say it's a must-read but you have to let go of your own anxieties and expectations and recognize this is more about people's neuroses and reactions, not whether this could've legitimately happened. When I do that, it's an easy 5 stars because Backman captures people's true nature better than no other author I know.

I really liked this book! Don't get me wrong, "A Man Called Ove" is still Backman's best, but considering I think that's one of the best books I've ever read, I don't really expect him to surpass it. That being said, "Anxious People" didn't disappoint me at all; in fact, I think I enjoyed the first chapter of this book more than any other I have read recently. Especially the line "Sometimes we panic, because the bills need paying and we have to be grown-up and we don't know how, because it's so horribly, desperately easy to fail at being grown-up." Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm not 16 anymore and others expect me to be a grown-up, so that line stuck with me.

For me, character development is essential to a good story, and this book definitely has that. Just when I felt like the plot was lagging, Backman would throw in a little nugget from one of the characters and I'd be right back into it. His characters' personalities, variety, and lack of stereotypes were wonderfully refreshing (the various meanings of "Stockholmers" made me chuckle). He kept me guessing until the very end! Definitely would recommend this book.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you want to believe in humanity again, just go read a Backman book. This is my fourth novel by the incredibly talented writer and 𝗔𝗻𝘅𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 is just what I needed for all the feels and witty dialogue. ⁣
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Backman is his own genre...no one writes such deep character-driven novels as he does. I’m just in awe of the magic he brings to layering his storytelling again & again!!
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Beartown still has my heart, but this novel has a secret character that wins as one of the most unforgettable characters of 2020 that I desperately needed during these weird quarantine times.
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Put Anxious People on your TBR & you won’t regret it!! I recommend going in blind (it’s a Backman novel, what more do you need to know?!),

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book!
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As always, Backman could write a grocery list and make me feel emotional.
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This one took me a bit to warm up to. God the characters were seemingly unintelligent and illogical. But of course it all comes together in ways only Backman can do. Every character plays a role that makes you smile, roll your eyes or even take in a deep breath.
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TW for suicide. It is a major topic in this and personally I have lost a parent this way— so at first I was not sure if I would continue. But I did and I’m happy I did. However, if this is a highly sensitive topic for you may want to tread with caution.

Fredrik Backman's writing first captured me with My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, and I've since read nearly all of his work and am equally enamored with each moving piece of fiction.

His latest novel, Anxious People, is due out September 8, 2020 from Atria Books. Net Galley and Atria Books provided me with an advanced copy such that I could review it, and I'm incredibly grateful they did. I was absolutely riveted, from the first page to the last. 

A bank robber. An apartment showing. An act of desperation. These components combine to create the potential for chaos and have the capacity to change the life of every person involved.

I finished this novel within 24 hours of beginning it, and stayed up past midnight reading. It's one of those rare novels where the plot and the characters are equally engaging and engrossing, where you simply must read just one more chapter, just one more page, just one more paragraph (or, if you're like me, you tell yourself this is the last chapter for several in a row and only put it down when your eyelids start sticking together for want of sleep!).

From the first page, the plot is absolutely riveting. With increasingly higher stakes and a decreasing probability for ending well for all, the tension steadily builds as you try solve the mystery and hope for the best while fearing the worse. It's a roller coaster ride of a novel, but incredibly well paced and thought provoking.

Told with a third person omniscient narrator, the story unfurls like a plume of smoke: it twists this way and that, flashes back and then returns to the present, and is interspersed with the police interviews of the hostages to both illuminate character's inner workings and keep the reader engaged. The storytelling mastery is evident as the police interviews, which could easily be dull and dry, are just as absorbing as the hostage situation itself.

What drives someone to do something desperate? How can one act of tragedy spiderweb out and touch many lives? Does doing the wrong thing for the right reason change how wrong it is? Anxious People explores these and more moral quandaries, in a thought provoking but not laborious way. Though the subject matter is, in general, a bit heavy, it is told with care and delicacy. At the same time, the small bits of humor in everyday life are not lost and hold even more value in the events of the novel.

Fredrik Backman's characters are always memorable, and this is no exception. From the bank robber to the real estate agent to the other hostages to the police officers, every character is thoroughly developed and their character is gradually revealed. We are reminded that each person we meet is the culmination of their experiences and desires of who they wish to be, and that each and every person we meet has their own unique motivations and stories that make up who they are. While jumping to conclusions is easy, it is worth listening a little longer to see if just perhaps someone is more than they seem.

Anxious People is one of those novels that will stay with you, long after you've finished it. It is one you'll want to return to again and again, to look for clues you may have missed and subtle foreshadowing to further illuminate the events. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to going back and reading it again.

As I have seen other reviewers note, I did not know what to expect going into this book. But, I do know I have very much enjoyed the other books I have read by Backman. Anxious People was no exception, however it did take some time for me to enjoy. Overall, I would rate this 3.5 stars but have rounded up for this review.

For about the first quarter of the book I was just not enjoying it. I didn’t care for the police interviews, and was thrown off by much of them because it felt like they were going nowhere. It felt slow and came off trying too hard to be funny (or maybe I just didn’t find it funny).

But...after that point it just got better and better. There were parts I really loved, moments and characters I so connected with. The slow revealing of these characters and their respective stories was ultimately satisfying it just took some time to get there. Backman always excels at this, creating characters that stay with the reader.

I think it might be best to go into this book not knowing more than is described in the book description as it can give away so much of what is beautiful about it but I also think the description could be misleading - I know I went in thinking this would be something very different.

So many thanks to the publishers for this copy to review.

Unfortunately Backman is just not the author for me. This book’s premise sounded good so I tried it but it didn’t work for me. But plenty of other readers love him so my opinion is in the minority.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was a fun book about “idiots”. We all have our issues and Backman weaves together the connections of everyday people in this witty, heartfelt novel.

I really didn't know what to expect from this book just from the title; I just knew Backman is a genius. I was up until 3am reading this and at several points I was laughing out loud and by the end I was sobbing and couldn't stop. Funny, heartbreaking and everything in between.

My best summary is this book is about people. Hilarious, broken, inept, kind people. I loved the interrogations of the hostages - I was rolling in laughter at some of these folks! The humor helps balance out the heartbreak and despair, because that is there, too.

I did not figure out what happened until Backman revealed it, so there were surprises right up until the end. The mystery is good, but the heart of this book is the people. And life, and how it can break you sometimes.

This book gave me anxiety at times while reading! The story was cute but the way it went back and forth was hard to keep up with at times. Though I felt this was Backman’s intentions don’t I kept reading though because I was interested in seeing how it would end. The way it was written made me feel like I was one of the hostages trying to figure out what was going on and what my next move was going to be. I’ve enjoyed several of Backman’s other stories so I was so glad when I received this copy to read

It took me a while to get used to this.  This is the first full Frederik Backman I've read, and the style was just so hard for me to follow for the first half.  I've tried to read Frederick Backman before and haven't been successful, so I'm wondering if perhaps he takes some getting used to.

This is a tough one to rate because it's hard to say I "enjoyed" it for much of the story because these characters - literally all of them - were truly so awful to other people around them.  That was hard to "watch." BUT, the commentary these characters brought forth on the state of humans today was so spot on.  From social media to online dating, to how we treat and view other people in general, I almost feel like I'm looking at people a little differently now, as silly as that sounds. While I can’t say I’ve behaved in the wildly unpleasant ways many of these characters did to one another, it did highlight how all the hundreds of big and little things every day put us on edge to the extent that we don’t know how to just “be” anymore.  So many of these characters were so desperately trying to fill the holes in their lives (or what they perceived to be holes) and I can absolutely relate to that.

So ultimately this gets four stars from me because while at times it wasn't "enjoyable," it was completely 100% intuitive, creative, and realistic about the way people are today.

I finished this one with tears in my eyes. I rarely read books like this - I enjoy plot-driven novels, and this is more character-driven. Overall, this book is about the human experience. It winds and spirals through the lives of multiple people held hostage after a failed bank robbery - but trust me, it’s not what you think. Each of the characters’ lives intertwines with another’s in an unexpected way, and there are several twists in this book that made my jaw drop. It’s a story of pain, redemption, love, kindness, and the human condition. I recommend it - but only when you’re feeling emotionally stable!

“This was a story about many different things, but most of all about idiots. Because we’re doing the best we can, we really are. We’re trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you’re supposed to insert USB leads. We are looking for something to cling onto, something to fight for, something to look forward to. We’re doing all we can to teach our children how to swim”.

Love Fredrik Backman? Long time fan?
Me too!

New to Backman?
His stories ... in the most raw sense of the word....are about humanity!

“How do you manage to have such a long marriage? she asked”.
“You fight for it, Estelle replied honestly”.
“Julia didn’t seem to like that quite as much”.
“That doesn’t sound very romantic”.
“Estelle grinned knowingly.
“You have to listen to each other all the time. But not ‘all’ the time. If you listen to each other ‘all’ the time, there’s a risk that you can’t forgive each other afterward”.

“And that’s the weirdest thing about being someone’s parent. Not just a bank robber parent, but any parent: that you are loved in spite of everything that you are. Even astonishingly late in life, people seem incapable of considering that their parents might not be super- smart and really funny and immortal. Perhaps there’s a biological reason for that, that up to a certain age a child loves you unconditionally and hopelessly for one single reason: you’re theirs. Which is a pretty smart move on biology’s heart, you have to give it that”.

Fredrik Backman has an exceptional keen eye ...
a brilliant light touch... for the way that tragic, comic, and tenderness mingle together.

This book reminded me of how short life really is. During our journey we see changes, possibly the truth,
hopefully love, and an openness for reconciliation.

...Touching and relatable ....
...Beautiful, quirky, playful, compelling, urgent, funny,
and compassionate.

Thank you Atria Books, Netgalley, and Fredrik Backman

ANXIOUS PEOPLE
BY FREDRIK BACKMAN

I have read all of Fredrik Backman's books and have loved every one of them. "Anxious People," his latest novel does not disappoint either. At first I thought I wasn't going to like this one but the more I read, the more I became enchanted again with his writing. He can take a plot that seems like pure satire and through his character's interpersonal relationship's breathe pure love of humanity so that he makes a true believer out of me that his plot could happen. He writes with a philosophical style in his latest narrative. He was really able to transform me by his tender renderings of each character who treat each other in the end with so much love.

I went from thinking I was not going to like this one to loving it. He writes the absurd happenings and can turn the tables of suspended belief into making me a true believer. There are not that many writer's who can turn the ludicrous plot into making it seem from being preposterous into making me willing to automatically believing that he is really writing about reality and life.

"The truth? The truth about all this? The truth is that this was a story about many different
things, but most of all about idiots. Because we're doing the best we can, we really are.
We're trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you're
supposed to insert USB-leads. We're looking for something to cling onto, something to
fight for, something to look forward to. We're doing all we can to teach our children how
to swim. We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know
what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine. Perhaps we hurried past each
other in a crowd today, and neither of us noticed, and the fibers of your coat brushed against
mine for a single moment and then we were gone. I don't know who you are. 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."

I am so enchanted by Fredrik Backman's writing. He has the power to make me believe that this world is a better place, especially in these difficult times. What more can you ask for when you curl up with a great novel? I highly recommend this book as well as all of his previous work if you have not had the pleasure to discover this very talented author.

Publication Date: September 8, 2020

A special thanks to Net Galley, Fredrik Backman and Atria Publishing for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#AnxiousPeople #FredrikBackman #AtriaPublishing #NetGalley

I am glad that I got to read this book early. It was funny and sad. Simple and complex. I enjoyed finding out more as the story went along and how everything was tied together. I will encourage patrons to read it if/when I am back to work at my library. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

There are hardly appropriate words to describe how much I love this book. It’s hilarious, it’s heartbreaking, it’s profound. If I start copying sentences while reading, I know a book is special, and I did it multiple times with this book. I loved the crazy, sad, weird bunch of “hostages” , and Backman writes in a way that is so real and relatable. This is truly one of the best, most moving books I have ever read. I can’t wait to recommend it to patrons.

I'm a firm believer in how a book will almost magically find its way into your hands at the exact right moment and when it does it can be an extremely powerful reading experience. That was the case for me with Anxious People. The message of the story is something I desperately needed to hear right now. Will everyone be a weepy mess like I was when I finished the book? Probably not, but I do think it is going to hit home with quite a few people. While this was my first book I have read by this much loved author, it certainly won't be my last.

The premise sounds fairly simple but yet the author created a complex tale. A bank robber holds a group of people hostage in an apartment building. After a standoff the hostages are released. Police enter the apartment but they can't find the bank robber. What happened? Well, police conduct interviews with the witnesses to get answers.

The author has a bit of a quirky writing style which took me a few chapters to get used to but I did grow to love it. I think a story like this could have gotten out of hand and over the top very easily but the author did a nice job staying in bounds. It wasn't too much of a stretch of my imagination to believe in the characters and plot. There's heart to the story which was a nice balance to the humorous parts.

While some readers are big on underlining quotes or marking them to read again later in books, I rarely do it. Maybe once a month or so I find a line that sticks with me and I want to revisit it later. With this book, I have six pages in which I doggy eared the page so I could go back and read the parts that strongly resonated with me. What I find amazing about this story is there's enough here in which each reader might pull something different from it. If you are asking each reader what was the message of the story the answers could vary. I found myself reflecting on my life while reading the book and when you have the opportunity to do that, it's often a meaningful reading experience which was the case here.

Thank you to Atria Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review!

"Anxious People" is a new book from the seasoned author, Fredrik Backman. The novel tells the tale of a botched bank robbery that turns into an odd hostage situation. The bandit just needs money to save his personal life and the hostages happened to be at a nearby apartment which becomes the thief's escape route.

Backman has delivered another outstanding novel in the form of "Anxious People." With a diverse cast of characters being held hostage, tensions are high but hysterical. Backman's writing is witty, comical and endearing. The characters are well developed throughout the story and the dialogue is extremely engaging. Backman crafts a tale that will have readers thinking about the importance of connection and community while enjoying some laughs along the way. With themes like family and friendships, this unforgettable book has solidified that Backman should be an "auto-buy" author.

Please note: Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.