Fredrik Backman’s latest novel, Anxious People, brings together various characters at an apartment viewing when you first encounter them. They seem like a band of misfits that each have their own confusing story, but eventually, your perception changes and they steal the show.

The story takes place in a Swedish small-town the day before New Year’s Eve and is an odd time for the events to take place, but the unusual storyline pulls us in as we try to see how all the connections fit into the plot.   

The story starts with a distraught parent, short on rent and afraid of losing child custody, failing miserably to rob a bank to get rent money. It is a cashless bank, and with the failed attempt, the robber, who is wearing a ski mask and carrying a toy handgun, escapes to a nearby apartment building walking into an open house, apartment viewing, and unintentionally turns the event into an extraordinary hostage situation.

Inside that apartment, eight diverse, quite different people who were strangers before that day are checking out an apartment for sale. When confronted by the bank robber, they receive a tearful apology and are told, “I’m having quite a complicated day here!”

These strangers do not seem lovable or even likable at first; they all seem to carry a lifetime of grievances and hurtful events of their own, and soon they all seem to be boiling over.

Backman’s writing style is immediately recognizable, but the story’s outcome is a surprise. The book is excellent and is not only just a joy to read but a focus on human nature worth reading.

― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People Quotes

“The truth is that if people were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet because no one having a perfect 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.”

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past were all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. We are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”

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