Anxious People

Writing this review with tears still in my eyes. This was absolutely phenomenal. This is one of those “state of the human condition books” and I knew within the first few pages that I was going to rate it five stars just from the writing style. 

This book will give you whiplash. You can be reading the most ridiculous, slap-stick comedy scene that has you laughing at the absurdity of it if nothing else one minute, and then a few paragraphs later there's a study on the effects of grief after losing someone you lived more of your life with than without that will have tears streaming down your face. Only for someone to make sex joke a few more paragraphs along. When I tell you this book takes you to the absolute highs and the absolute lows I mean it.

The cast of characters are so very dear to me. Everyone gets a backstory and an exploration and you end up rooting for every single one of them, even the “bad guys” even though I don't think there truly are any in this book. I was reacting to this book over text with my best friend and I told them “the main focus of this book seems to be that humans are cruel and stupid sometimes but not all the time and the rest of the time is the time that matters” and I think that holds up as the general theme and lesson from this book. That we're all just trying our best at life when we've been given no real guidebook and even though we can make mistakes and do bad things it doesn't mean that we've failed. We just have to keep trying.

There were so many quotes in this book that gutted me and stripped me raw and I would love to share them here, but you honestly wouldn't understand them unless you've read the book yourself because the author tied up so many little details and references in every moment in such a beautiful, seamless way that the thought of that ALSO makes me tear up.

And I also absolutely adore Backman's writing style. A lot of the time 3rd person books are more of a performance in the way that they're told; the art of it is how the author presents the story itself, how beautiful the words they use are. And there's nothing wrong with that, and neither of these styles are better than the other, but in this book it feels like I'm sitting down with the author myself and he's telling me this story as if we were two friends who are spending time together. And of course there's still beautiful language and imagery, but there's an intimacy he fostered here with his writing style that was awe-inspiring to witness.

One of the easiest 5 stars I've ever given.