Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Title: Anxious People
Author: Fredrik Backman
Genre: Fiction
My Review Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
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 up their own marriage. There’s a wealthy banker who has been too busy making money 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 a motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

The first pages were kinda annoying (as usual) because the way it’s written, I think that would be better if it’s narrated like verbally. Reading it is a little bit confusing that I needed to read then re-read and re-read again just to understand what it was implying.

“Don’t think about cookies,” and now you’re thinking about cookies. Don’t think about cookies. All you need to know is that a man was standing…. So then don’t tell me. Maybe?

I started drafting this review at chapter 20 where my mood shifted to another. I almost stopped reading the book and move on to another Goodreads recommendation, but I thought yeah let’s give it a couple more chapters and then boo! Chapter 20, now I’m sad, now I’m crying, and I hate roller coasters of emotions because that my every day and I am reading to escape my normal day but hello, Fredrik Backman. (I promise I’m gonna read a horror book next to this one!)

Edit from future May: You finished this, you loved this, and you did not follow it with a horror book.

From a trying-hard funny (which works at some parts, to be fair), it had a hard shift to being a parent also trying hard to become a good one. I hate that. I hate that I had to read that. Because I was imagining how hard it was and I am a parent, too, and I feel like if I were him, I’d lose myself, too. I’d do stupid things, too.

“The day before New Year’s Eve, you put the latest letter from the lawyer who wants to take them (your kids) away from you in your pocket, next to the letter from your landlord which says that id you don’t pay the rent today, you’re going to be evicted.” That sucks. That is so painful. And knowing that your spouse is a bit worried about you being the father of her children, sucked more.

I never gave up and read more pages. The scene (or chapters, rather) where the hostages and the bank robber had their moments sharing their life stories was my favorite part. Thank God, I did not lose the courage to go and move on to these pages.

Most people love reading books because it’s as if they “travel to other places”. I love books because it makes me see what other people may feel. Yea, kind of traveling as well, but the experience of meeting new people and learning unfamiliar cultures and realizing others’ way of thinking is much more precious.

I am that person who (almost always) think that I am in some level of depression and anxiety. Reading this book did not invalidate my feelings, instead it made me realize that while different people have different tolerance on b*llsh*ts, they also have different ways to cope. While they have different personal challenges, they also have different ways to tell their loved ones they’re still by their side. And if you think “other people” may not be affected by your life decisions, well you’re wrong. There is at least one person out there who cares. And sometimes they care a lot that their own decisions are affected by yours already, you just don’t know.

It took me exactly two weeks to finish this book. Because 1) the first parts, I admit, was kind of confusing and not an easy read; 2) I was (and still am) busy at work and parenting that I have only a few minutes a day to read and absorb what I was reading.

In the end, I rated it 4-point-something. Four was just not enough, and I couldn’t give a five either because of my reasons. But I love that it affected my life and mindset in general so I’m shelfing it with my best and fave books.