Whatever your expectations for this book are, you’re definitely wrong. I laughed out loud, my jaw dropped several times, and at the end, to my great surprise, I cried. Yes, this is a mystery novel about a hostage situation, but it’s also about 12 people who couldn’t be more different, and yet more similar. It’s sometimes scary to think about the ways we’re all tied to one another, but Backman highlights the beauty of that. My only critique is I wish it had a better title- the current one doesn’t do it justice. This book is about choices, the right ones and the wrong ones. It’s about unlikely friendships and messy families and love and laughing and finding yourself and idiots; and yes its riddled with anxiety on such a striking, humane level, but that’s not really the heart of the book. That being said, I’m grateful to have learned as much as I did from this book. Perhaps, I’ll plant an apple tree today.