Anxious People by Fredrick Backman

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am in love! This book is like a gust of fresh air after a long time indoors, or a cool dip in water in peak summer. Really!

This is my first book by Fredrik Backman and I really didn't know what to expect. A few pages in, I was like "Wow! This is a delight!!" Only then did I look up and discover Fredrik Backman is a Swedish author and this is a translation. I am left thinking, if the translation is so good, the original must be so much more touching, and also that the translator Neil Smith has succeeded in reaching readers in another language. Hats off! The only other Swedish author I have read was Stieg Larsson whose Millenium Trilogy I have really enjoyed.

The book is about love and loss, normal everyday moments, mental health, gender and sexuality, infidelity and divorce, death, desperation, alcoholism, ambition, and the need to do the right thing, in short - normal human experiences. It's like a goldilocks zone for each character. Just enough depth to feel for each of them and relate to them and without feeling too heavy because each is a human experience. Funny at so many places that I found myself laughing loudly and then at a blind corner comes a human tragedy, sucked the wind out of my lungs. What beautiful balance!!!

Fredrik Backman is my latest favourite author and this book is easily the best I have read in a long time. So much so, his debut book is waiting on my to-read shelf to be consumed very soon.







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