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Anxious People by Fredrik Backman hit me right in the part of me that I never want to discuss, the part that I don't even know how to discuss. He knows how we feel at our lowest moments, during our biggest and smallest times of disappointment, grief, and feelings of despair. Yet, rather than bringing me down, he lightens my heart because we aren't alone in these feelings. There is humor in how we feel and there is hope in low times. This book made me laugh and I loved it. 

So now, watch me call all of us idiots because Backman makes such good points about the subject. We aren't alone in our idiot-ness, though. That could be beside the point or it could be THE point . Things happen, mistakes are made, but sometimes we can do things that alter the path of those mistakes before they become so destructive that we can't pull back from the black hole we are facing. 

There is a very reluctant bank robber-to-be and when attempting to rob a bank, the bank robber makes the biggest mistake a bank robber can make. So the failed bank robber runs and accidently takes an apartment of people hostage. The now hostage taker is having a very bad day, worse than the bad day they were having before they tried to rob a bank. And the hostages! The hostages are the worst! What is wrong with these people! 

We learn more about the hostage taker and the hostages and I loved it all. The two police officers, who later try to question the former hostages, are at their wits ends. The former hostages won't answer questions, they talk in circles, they ask their own very unhelpful questions, it's obvious that they are idiots and the police officers feel like they are idiots, too. How can so much go wrong and where is the bank robber/hostage taker? How did they escape from a closed area, with only one guarded exit. Just what is going on?

Publication: September 8, 2020

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for this ARC.