Reviewed by Sophie:
“A bank robbery. A hostage drama. A stairwell full of police officers on their way to storm an apartment. It was easy to get to this point, much easier than you might think. All it took was one single really bad idea. This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. “
This has to be one of the best openings to a book ever. Thank you Net Galley and Penguin for allowing me the opportunity to read this book.
I have read many books by Fredik Backman, so was excited to be allowed to read his latest addition to the collection.
From the off set the book begins its humorous account of a bank robbery gone wrong. I mean… It’s definitely an opportunity for some hilarious antics and this book doesn’t disappoint with that.
The language is wonderful. There are some moments where I literally laughed aloud and giggled all the way through.
Solely in the first chapter, Fredrik compares the knowledge of sex to a usb leads” wrong way round, wrong way round, wrong way round and there! In” as well as the bank robbers mum “consisted of so much gin and tonic that they didn’t dare cremate her because of risk of explosion”. The book is full of these little gems.
The structure of the book is very disjointed and goes back and forth in time. The writing seems to go off on tangents just as of you were having a conversation with someone who was relaying this tale rather than reading a book, which could make alot of people … Well anxious…. As the flow of the book isn’t smooth transitions and could almost be deemed as frustrating to some.
However, the structure of the book becomes a unique quality. We start to learn more about the individual characters. Again at first all deemed annoying and unlikable in there own rights, but Backman builds on these qualities as and reader sees that first impressions aren’t always correct.
Like all his books Backman looks at the characters in a manor that makes us laugh and cry at the same time. Each character is not an “idiot” as the introduction may lead us to believe but actually a spider web of intricately knitted problems that all of us may have encountered at some point in our lives. The bank robber who messes up everything just to pay the rent; Roger who’s life is the buying and selling of these apartments to fill a granchildless void, Ro who is missing her father’s support and is needing an apartment for her blossoming family with Julie; Zara who’s attends viewings because of addiction and routine, Jack and Jim and many other characters. We realise it’s more than a bank robbery gone wrong; it’s a story about people helping others; chance meetings.
Anxious people was not what I was expecting….it was better.
Author: Fredrik Backman
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: 8 September 2020
Lotte's Library 