Summary

This is a story about a bank robbery.

On an ordinary day in Stockholm, a robber enters a bank intending to rob the bank of six thousand five hundred dollars.

When the bank employee raises an alarm, the robber runs into the nearest stairwell and walks into an apartment viewing. Directing a robbery situation into a hostage drama.

There are eight people at the viewing. The police surround the apartment and manage to get the hostages released.

But when the police storm the apartment looking for the robber, they find it empty, with no trace leading to the robber, but for a gunshot sound and a pool of blood in the apartment.

My Review

This book is not a typical read. It is a very different book.

The narration happens through a character who seems to know the whole story.

I felt like I feel when I’m at a railway station. There a multitude of people that surround me and when I look at them I wonder, where might they be going? What might they do in their everyday life? What could be the purpose of their travel? The strangers in this book interact and wonder about each other similarly.

 I wouldn’t say this book is a refreshing or happy read because, at times, I felt like the characters were all too obnoxious and so blatant during the police interrogations.

And the timelines kept moving back and forth, and I got the feeling that way too much was divulged and discussed about each character. In the beginning, it felt unnecessary. 

And then I came to the part in the book where the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle started falling into place.

And then dawned the realization why Backman’s books make such a unique reading experience. He plays with your assumptions and makes you feel the human connection.

His writing covers several themes like anxiety, depression, suicide, divorces, and he handles these themes with satire, wit, and humor. But one theme that stood out for me was the kindness that persists in human beings despite their adversities.

That is what makes us humane.

Every character displayed this quality by the end of the story to some or another extent.

Everything came together beautifully in the end. And I was left content but pondering life’s many questions.

This book makes so much more sense during this pandemic that all of us are going through worldwide.

Final Verdict

I don’t think the author wrote this book for the sole purpose of entertaining. He seems to have written it to educate, to make us aware, and to talk about the best human quality-compassion and empathy. For this compelling, riveting and earnest read I award a perfect score of 5 stars. 

Because the gist is – even if you know the world might end tomorrow, plant an apple tree today. Remember to save those we can.

Who Should Read This

No Triggers here. Everyone-any age, any gender, any nationality must read this book. 

Happy Reading!

Top 21 Quotes from Anxious People by Fredrick Backman

“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.”

“If you can do something for someone in such a way that they think they managed it all on their own, then you’ve done a good job.”

“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 human is.”

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

“When you’re a child you long to be an adult and decide everything for yourself, but when you’re an adult you realize that’s the worst part of it.”

“Nothing is easier for people who never do anything themselves than to criticize someone who actually makes an effort.”

“It just hurts so much at times, being human.”

“You can’t protect your kids from life, because life gets us all in the end.”

“Loneliness is like starvation, you don’t realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.”

“We don’t want our children to pursue their own dreams or walk in our footsteps. We want to walk in their footsteps while they pursue our dreams.”

“It’s easier to live with your own anxieties if you know that no one else is happy, either.”

“We don't have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there'll be another one coming along tomorrow.”

“No one in the world shared her prospects, and that’s the greatest loneliness in the world: when no one is walking beside you toward your destination.”

“The truth? It’s hardly ever as complicated as we think. We just hope it is, because then we feel smarter if we can work it out in advance.”

“People need bureaucracy, to give them time to think before they do something stupid.”

“Expensive restaurants have bigger gaps between the tables. First class on airplanes has no middle seats. Exclusive hotels have separate entrances for guests staying in suites. The most expensive thing you can buy in the most densely populated places on the planet is distance.”

“Have you ever held a three-year-old by the hand on the way home from preschool?"

"No."

"You're never more important that you are then.”

“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.”

“We give those we love nicknames, because love requires a word that belongs to us alone.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”