Anxious People: A Novel

Excellent character development and entertaining dialogue. It's a hopeful exploration of the ways people can be kind to, and connect with, others who seemingly have nothing in common.

Funny, zany, loved the characters.

Funny and thought provoking. When life hands you lemons.

Not a favorite of the group. There was a lot of complicated characters and a little hard to follow. Probably a 5.

When a bank robbery at a cashless bank goes disastrously wrong, the would-be robber accidentally takes an eclectic and diverse group of strangers hostage. Among them are a recently retired couple, a wealthy yet emotionally distant bank director, and a young couple who can’t seem to agree on anything. Add an eighty-seven-year-old woman who is completely unfazed by having a gun pointed at her, a flustered real estate agent, and a mysterious man locked inside the apartment’s only bathroom, and you have what may be the most dysfunctional group of hostages imaginable. Each character carries their own grievances, secrets, and unspoken longings. No one is quite who they appear to be, and every one of them is in need of some form of rescue—whether they realize it or not. As these reluctant companions are forced together, unexpected truths begin to surface, setting off a chain of events so surprising that even the characters themselves struggle to make sense of what unfolds. The story opens with seemingly unrelated events and initially feels complicated and disjointed. Over time, however, it becomes clear that several of the characters are connected by a shared event in the past, though they remain unaware of these ties. The novel throws in several clever twists while simultaneously challenging societal norms. The cast is, for the most part, deeply unlikable—and ironically, the most sympathetic character in the entire story is the hostage-taker himself. Despite being described as a story “about idiots,” Anxious People delivers an impressive range of themes. It explores poverty, suicide, aging, drug addiction, grief, faith, greed, infidelity, and divorce, all wrapped in Fredrik Backman’s signature quirky humor. Ultimately, this is a strange, funny, and unexpectedly thoughtful novel about deeply flawed people stumbling their way toward empathy and understanding.