2021: I know that a lot of people have found this book to be very polarizing, and yet I find myself uniquely in the middle!

I overall enjoyed the novel. Backman is FANTASTIC when it comes to characterization and this interweaving web of characters is kept firmly on track. There were so many opportunities for this novel to slide off the rails, or to slip into impossibility, but Backman keeps it together. The ending was so very satisfying to get to, with all of the tales and subplots neatly wrapped up.

However, it is a stressful ride to get there. I've said this before about books where the main character is an anxious person (all of the narrators, in this case) - it's not a pleasant time to be inside their head. This book should come with a big content warning; there are multiple characters who discuss their own suicidal thoughts. The title should give readers a big tip here: these are very anxious people. They present as pretty awful people for the first half of the book, but an engaging plot kept me invested, and I was thrilled with the revelations presented in the last quarter of the story.

My final takeaway is how nice it was to hear about a society in which you CAN belong to different political parties and still hold the same values as your partner. It was difficult to listen to that kind of talk in the year 2021 in the US, but I am optimistic that we can escape the Republican/Democrat binary and get to a similar mindset soon. Also, minor fact checking issue here: the English translation continues to refer to Jack's mum as a "priest", but the Church in the US does not allow for female or married priests. Looking forward to the day when that's changed! But until then, I would have advocated for a different word to be used to translate her profession.