Anxious People

 

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Fiction

2020 Simon & Schuster Audio

Read by Marin Ireland

Finished on August 11, 2021

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

A poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.

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.

 Humorous, compassionate, and wise, 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 of times.

I loved A Man Called Ove, Beartown and My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry, so I was really looking forward to another gem by Fredrik Backman. I decided to listen to the audiobook since it's narrated by the wonderful Marin Ireland. (I loved listening to her narrating Kevin Wilson's novel Nothing To See Here.) I know I'm in the minority, but I was pretty disappointed with this novel. Several characters (and their conversations with one another, particularly the police interviews) were very annoying and it wasn't until the last quarter of the book that I warmed up to any of them. There's a bit of a mystery, which Backman slowly reveals, peeling away at the layers like an onion. Those final chapters are touching and reminiscent of his previous books, but I remain unimpressed with this novel. I still have Britt-Marie Was Here and Us Against You in my stacks and I hope they don't disappoint.

I received a complimentary copy from Libro.fm. All thoughts and opinions are my own.