The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman is a very funny short story about one man trying to live his life without his routine being interrupted and what happens when one day something out of the ordinary occurs. It is a quick read, but very much worth it. The story is very relatable and this is one that I would recommend to everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

A fun, quick read that truly encapsulates the writing style of Fredrik. A great recommendation for anyone who is looking to get into his books or something to hold over his fans until his next book. I’m a fan of his tone and the way he ties his stories together.

There are very few people who can create mundane characters with such heart lioke Fredrik Backman. These are the ones we often don't pay attention to - the elderly woman next door, the single man living upstairs you only see once a month.

In this short story, we meet Lucas, who has nothing in life to complain about, until a frying pan is left in front of his building and all hell breaks loose. We meet the obligatory funny side characters, some simply named Head one, purple dress, etc. "

"That’s your sweet spot, because everyone wants a neighbor who minds his own business, but if you mind your own business too much the neighbors may be reminded that this is exactly what everyone always says about serial killers: “Him? I remember him as a bit of a loner. Kept to himself"

There are some memorable lines that just stuck with me and are classic Backman:

"Love isn’t powerful enough. But spite? Spite can change the world. Soon the whole street is full of people who for hours and hours voluntarily carry away junk, just to prove that angels don’t exist. No one dares to tell them that this actually sounds very much like something that angels would do."
"You’re fortunate, Lucas. You view loneliness as taking people away. But for most of us, loneliness is just adding more loneliness.”
This was just the sweetest of short stories, and loved how it all wrapped up in the end.

Can't wait for Backman's next book(s), because there is no one quite like him.

This was a laugh out loud sardonic look at one man who lived for his solitude, and the chaos that ensued when his world was invaded by others!

I think that everyone who has lived somewhere that has a governing Board in charge will find this true to character. Poor Lucas’ solitary life is interrupted one day by a knock on his door. The dreaded Board is on the other side and the romp begins. Lucas meets a couple of his unusual neighbors and other assorted people along the way.

Quick, silly read good for some laughs.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book but my opinions are my own.

Thank you Netgalley and Amazon Original Stories for this arc.

Lucas wants to be left alone to eat his pizza, drink some red wine, and finish his new video game but someone throws out a frying pan and his plan goes to hell. The Pile starts, the residence board appears on his doorstep, and his neighbors start to talk to him.

While it’s only 68 pages long, I did laugh a lot while reading it and it’s a wonderful microcosm of modern life. We get neighbors, city government, a residence board, and FB groups. Up til now, Lucas has avoided all of this which makes him … maybe not happy but not unhappy either which is much less exhausting than trying to be happy all the time. Sadly he’s soon dragged kicking, sighing, and horrified into a Kafkaesque mess because he makes the mistake of actually trying to solve a problem rather than just laying blame on someone.

The first half or slightly more of the story is truly funny but then it sort of jumps the tracks when the FB angel groups appear. The image of a three-headed hydra board (“Not now, Linda!”) had me in stitches. Lucas is horrified to discover he’s actually beginning to be (gasp!) social as well as being called upon to make decisions. In the end, it seems like maybe he’s found a middle way? I’d give this one a B.

This was such a wholesome short story by Fredrik Backman. I love how he writes realistic characters and their growth, journey, and connections throughout the story.

Lucas's solitary, orderly life is turned upside-down when someone leaves a frying pan outside the building's recycling room, and the building board comes a-calling. And things only get stranger from there...

This makes for a whimsical, absurdist read—and by midway through the story, one can't really blame Lucas for wanting to close himself away from his neighbors and the rest of the world. Go into this expecting common sense and you will be sorely disappointed, but...perhaps go in expecting common sense anyway, as that will keep things more interesting.

"Just to be clear: It's not that Lucas hates other people. He just really enjoys being where other people aren't. He works well in groups as long as it's groups of fewer than two people." (loc. 67)

Sometimes people are enough to make a person want to investigate the sort of coma the green-shirt woman has, aren't they?

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for gifting me a digital ARC of this novella by the amazing Fredrik Backman. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 5 stars!

Lucas has found the secret to happiness - no people. He's happy just the way he is. But then people start appearing in his life.

Fredrik Backman is the hero for all introverts, and this book will resound soundly with all of them. There is no one who writes with the same relatability, wit, heart and with the best characters to both teach and entertain us. I loved every short page of this book - a must read!!

A Fredrik Backman story to hold me over until My Friends publishes in 2025? Yes, please! This short story was as heartfelt as I expected from Backman, but it was also positively hilarious. I enjoy following Backman on IG and his dry, sarcastic humor makes my day when he posts. This short story was full of THAT side of his personality, but it also had an undercurrent of found family and overcoming loneliness with human connection. I enjoyed the ride for this quick read!

Thank you to Fredrik Backman, Amazon and NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This short story packs a punch! I've read a few others books by Backman and his ability to write characters with depth is unmatched! Within a few pages I felt like I knew these characters better than I do after reading full length novels. A true talent!

Backman's humor is no for everyone but I love it! A little dry and to the point which definitely made me giggle out loud at a few points - I'm 100% on team "peanuts on pad thai" iykyk ;)

I look forward to reading more from Backman in the future!

A funny, relatable short story with some valuable life lessons included. I loved the humourous tone of The Answer Is No, and many aspects of Lucas' personality and mindset resonated with me. It draws from real-life experiences that many of us will have had with neighbours and exaggerates these to a new level, while the situations presented allow the characters to learn important lessons about loneliness and the value of taking risks to be happy. Lucas was so relatable that I was engaged with the story from the beginning, and found it to be a fun, heartwarming read - would recommend this to anyone else looking for a quick escape from real life.

I'd say this book is like 60% of my personality.

It is short, but it is both funny and a sort of self-help/motivational book for introverts.
It motivates us introverts to BOTH accept that it's perfectly fine to be as we are (and set boundaries that extroverts might not understand), AND that sometimes we can enjoy people and interactions when we least expect it, so we should push ourselves out of the comfort every now and then. In small doses of course.

I didn't really expect this funny book to be profound, nor to have me shed a tear (the hat/kitten scene, and the "jumping kids").

I'm glad I decided to take this up on a whim, after seeing it on another's feed.

I also adore the cover so much that I'm sad there won't be a printed copy of this. I would be a proud owner of one. But it's just the right length for the story and it would not make sense to water it down just to get a page goal.

I am Lucas. Lucas is me.

The first few pages were already hilarious because I relate with the entirety of Lucas’ introverted, nearly antisocial disposition. And then the moment we got into the frying pan incident, we’re led through even more nonsensical events and meet silly characters that made the story simply hysterical.

Yet in true Backman fashion, this short story carries a profound message. How do you become a happy person? It’s perhaps better to reframe the question: how do you keep yourself from being unhappy? The answer is different for everyone.

"It’s a frying pan that ruins Lucas’s life."

This little short gives you a moment to pause and laugh at the absurd. With living close together in an apartment or condo environment, interactions with neighbors can be silly because of the forced proximity. People that would not normally interact are suddenly thrown together and it can create silly moments.

I just made sure to not take this one seriously and roll with the silly. It was cute and I bet it's a great audio. Quick read and I enjoyed it for small break from the hustle and bustle of holiday stress.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Answer is No releases December 1, 2024

What does happiness look like to you? Is it better to strive to be happy all of the time, or just maintain a level to where you never quite reach being wholly unhappy?

Honestly, if I had to deal with neighbours and board members who were as annoying as the ones in this story, I would also limit my interactions with human beings, just like Lucas chose to do.
Mental health matters, and there’s nothing wrong with living a more solitary life if you happen to enjoy your own company.

I love an absurd little story and this hit that spot precisely. I was hooked from the first little page. I have a few books on my shelf by this author that I haven’t gotten to yet so I wanted to get the taste for his writing. Now I am eager to dive into them. It was witty, it was clever, it was captivating. I am not usually a short story fan but I enjoyed this one more than most.

The Answer Is No is a short story by best-selling Swedish author, Fredrik Backman which can easily be read in one sitting. Now in his thirties, Lucas knows exactly what makes him happy: relaxing on a comfortable couch, drinking red wine, playing video games and eating pad thai with extra peanuts. It’s what he’s trying to do when there’s a knock on his door.

It’s the board, an authoritarian creature voted in at a meeting of residents, which Lucas sees as “a bureaucratic hydra, a mythical monster in a sweater vest and ergonomic slippers”. It‘s at his door about an old frying pan Illegally left on the ground outside the recycling room. Not his, Lucas assures them. His simple solution is rejected on the grounds that the culprit needs to be identified and held responsible.

“A funny thing about rule-loving people is that to them it seems more important to impose punishment than it is to actually solve problems, and a funny thing about rule-breaking people is that they seem to find breaking rules a lot easier to do if someone else has broken them first.”

Indeed, others do break the rules and the illegal frying pan has gained companions and become a Pile: another frying pan, a rug, a broken TV, four electric candlesticks, a single ice-skate, and something that looks like a black fur hat. Due to his sensible suggestion, Lucas finds himself unwittingly and unwillingly co-opted to be the chair of the Pile Committee.


Before the matter is resolved, Lucas finds himself interacting with the downstairs neighbour who is stealing his wifi, an overworked, underappreciated mother who is “in a coma” in the flat next door (for a rest), groups who believe in angels, groups who deny the existence of angels, groups who want to be ninjas, protestors, police, a council functionary, and an ever-growing pile of junk, all keeping from his comfortable couch, wine, pad thai and video game. Until he comes up with a laterally-thought-out solution…

Backman certainly demonstrates that he has the measure of petty bureaucracy, but he also gives his characters some insightful observations on human behaviour and happiness. He also excels at the descriptive turn of phrase: “as if she were holding a gun loaded with annoyance” is one example. As always, Backman gives the reader plenty to laugh about whilst also tugging at the heart strings. Delightful.

I will read everything and anything Backman writes. Full of hope, humor, and the usual reminder of goodness in humans, this is one I will continue to think about!

This felt like a children's book that was written for adults (complimentary)

Lucas just wants to live his peaceful life alone, but that doorbell will not stop ringing. Highlighting the inanity of people, while showcasing the desire for community, this short story takes a big adventure in very few pages!

Ugh, I loved this! It made me laugh out loud in every chapter. It's witty, sharp, funny, and heartwarming. A feel-good, direct story with a lovely message.