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thewildflowerreads 's review for:
Anxious People
by Fredrik Backman
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If anyone has read the midnight library then my comparison will hopefully make sense. For me this book is so so emotional and is hitting all the personal heart strings and I couldn't understand why until the idea of existentialism popped into my head. For me, this theme appears in both TML and Anxious People. A theme I didn't think I connected so deeply with but have found the most appreciation for. I, myself struggle with a few different mental health issues and in so, also struggle with understanding what my purpose is. What the point of everything is etc. And this is the kind of self sabotage and deprecation that I am sensing within this book. Even in only the first few chapters. I feel as though this book will reach into my chest and wrap its pointed tendrils around my heart. Reminding me that my heart has been given to me and can just the same be taken away. Reminding me that the beat of my heart is my reason. That if I don't hold my heart within my own grasp then someone else will snatch it up. I'm not sure if I'm making sense but the deep, raw emotions im feeling right now is ensuing a sense of out-of-body sensations through me. Just as though I'm astral projecting into the emotional injustice of this book.
"The truth, of course, is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. 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."
I Feel like I was reading what an anxiety attack feels like. I felt so claustrophobic, so anxious, so helpless. It actually felt like I had cotton in my mouth with how dry it was with my quickened breaths when reading as it had that much of an impact in the way it was written!! I have anxiety and that mirrored exactly how my inner monologue is when i panic, when I lose control of my thoughts, of my emotions, of my surroundings and situations.
It had the same intensity at Billie Eilishes song "The 30th". Same rambling. Same build up. Same incomprehensible rarity of an abundance of human emotion running laps simultaneously around each other.
It's the fact that I'm feeling guilty for every characters lives and choices and circumstances as well as contemplating my own that really digs a hole into the deepest parts of my stomach.
Beautiful right to the very end
"The truth, of course, is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. 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."
I Feel like I was reading what an anxiety attack feels like. I felt so claustrophobic, so anxious, so helpless. It actually felt like I had cotton in my mouth with how dry it was with my quickened breaths when reading as it had that much of an impact in the way it was written!! I have anxiety and that mirrored exactly how my inner monologue is when i panic, when I lose control of my thoughts, of my emotions, of my surroundings and situations.
It had the same intensity at Billie Eilishes song "The 30th". Same rambling. Same build up. Same incomprehensible rarity of an abundance of human emotion running laps simultaneously around each other.
It's the fact that I'm feeling guilty for every characters lives and choices and circumstances as well as contemplating my own that really digs a hole into the deepest parts of my stomach.
Beautiful right to the very end
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol