Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

You know what? Instead of my usual review, here are a few random thoughts and feelings about Anxious People by Fredrik Backman:

• Oh, wow.
• This is different.
• Good different.
• Like, extremely good.
• The voice and writing style is like that of Jonas Jonasson (The Hundred Year Old Man Who...).
• Easy to read, yet with chewy issues to sleep on.
• I keep wanting to quote from it:
• “Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”
• “Parents are defined by their mistakes.”
• “Because the people we argue with hardest of all are not the ones who are completely different from us, but the ones who are almost no different at all.”
• “Parenthood can lead to a sequence of years when the children's feelings suck all the oxygen out of a family, and that can be so emotionally intense that some adults go for years without having an opportunity to tell anyone about their own feelings, and if you don't get a chance for long enough, sometimes you simply forget how to do it.”
• Oh, you want to know about the story line? It's about a bank robbery and a hostage situation, but it's a comedy, not a drama. It's fantastic. And then it gets better.