Title: Anxious People
Author: Fredrik Backman
Genre: Contemporary
Published: September 08, 2020
Pages: 341
The Carpenter Confessions 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 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.
I’ve never read a Freidrik Backman book before. I am in the middle of listening to Beartown, but haven’t finished it. Anxious People was a really good book to introduce a new author. It had me laughing and crying, it just was a book I really enjoyed. It was another buddy read hosted by @greeneyedgirl0704 I felt like it made you think about a lot of things and it was a meaningful book to read.
There was a lot of context to this book and a lot going on. I was able to keep up, but you’ve got to pay attention or you’ll miss something important for later. This book is definitely not one that is fast paced and at least for me, I couldn’t have read more than about fifty to seventy five pages before I felt like it was a lot of information. It was really good and I’m so glad I read it. I feel like it was more than a book and it felt like real life. Sometimes books can feel a lot like a movie. I mean I turn every book into a movie in my head, but if you know what I mean by saying that, it felt a lot like how a movie would be. There were pieces that were very serious and you really had to connect to, then you’re laughing because something was just too funny not to. I enjoyed this book and really liked how it was slightly a different read than what I’m used to. I’ll be reading more of his work in the future!
I didn’t give this a five star because it did get slow at times and I had a hard time staying focused because I felt it didn’t move on fast enough for me. Also, there were multiple characters, in third person, that I made it hard for me to be able to connect very much to anyone specifically. At times it felt very surfaced and didn’t get personal. In addition to that, I didn’t love how the book resolved the main situation, it felt very fictional. I wished it felt more realistic, but that’s just what I think.
WHO I’D RECOMMEND TO:
I think this book isn’t for everyone, but if you like a more serious book or books that have a lot of meaning in them, this is for you. I’d say it goes to an older age group because suicide is mentioned quite a few times and I know that I can be hard for some people to read.
FORMAT:
Physical Book(Owned)
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