I’ve read almost all of Fredrik Backman’s other books, so I was surprised when I discovered this one over the summer that I had not yet read. I bought it for my dad to read while we were on vacation, and since he kept laughing out loud while reading it, I figured it was more of Backman’s light, fluffy fare, and that it was just what I needed to end 2021.
Don’t get me wrong, there were parts of this book that made me laugh, but this book is also very sad in a lot of parts. There’s a suicide, an attempted suicide, someone who’s so full of anxiety she’s having suicidal thoughts, a widow grieving the death of her husband, a policeman grieving the death of his wife while his son is grieving the death of his mother. Oh, and his daughter is addicted to drugs, so she’s never around unless she needs money.
So, that’s what they’re dealing with when a desperate person tries to rob a bank, but makes the mistake of trying to rob a cashless bank, so of course they don’t get very far. When the teller pushes the panic button, the would-be robber flees in a panic and ends up across the street in an apartment complex in an open house, and ends up accidentally taking everyone in the apartment hostage.
SPOILER ALERT: After this point you’ll find spoilers for the whole book, so consider yourself warned.
The hostages quickly realize their captor has no idea what they’re doing, and they’re all pretty sure the pistol is fake (although it’s not).
The would-be robber is obviously not a professional criminal and has no idea what they’re doing, and doesn’t even know what to demand in exchange for the release of the hostages, much less how to escape the mess they’ve gotten themselves into.
It turns out their spouse has been cheating on them with their boss, and when everything came to light, not only did the person lose their marriage, and their house (because it was only in their spouse’s name) they also lost their job because their boss thought it would be too “awkward”.
The would-be robber (whose name we never learn) refuses to put up a fight over any of this because they don’t want their two kids to be caught in the middle of a nasty divorce. But when they’re unable to find another job to pay the next month’s rent, their ex threatens to take full custody of the kids, so the would-be robber gets desperate, and when you’re desperate you do stupid things because you don’t think anything through.
So, despite the fact that they’re technically holding everyone at gunpoint, the would-be robber is a very sympathetic character, largely because they never hurt anyone and never have any intention of hurting anyone. The hostages eventually make friends with each other and then with the would-be robber when they realize the impossible situation they’re in.
The hostages include a pregnant florist and her wife, a retired couple who flip apartments, a widow, a real estate agent, a bank executive, and an actor. You wouldn’t think they’d have anything in common, but the widow and florist strike up a friendship that lasts for years, and the bank executive and actor strike up a relationship that I certainly hope lasts for years – even the rest of their lives.
The book jumps all over the place chronologically, and at the core is these two police officers trying to figure out how the hostage taker disappeared. Are they hiding in the apartment? If so, where?
There were so many twists I actually got Twist Fatigue, and I didn’t even know that was a thing. One of the biggest twists was finding out the hostage taker was a woman (although we still don’t know her name). Up until that point, male pronouns were used to refer to her, and while we might expect the police to assume the perpetrator was a man, I think there was a better way for Backman to lead up to that twist. I think it would have been more clever to use gender-neutral pronouns to refer to the perpetrator until their gender is revealed, but I don’t know if Swedish even has gender-neutral pronouns, or if it does and this was a failure of translation rather than writing.
Aside from that mistake, I liked this book for the most part. It’s you’re typical Backman mixture of sad and sweet and funny. He’s as effective as ever at tugging on my heartstrings.