Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

15 reviews

szymek_w_rodawski's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Racism and War

fantaiil's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Fredrik Bakmann is and will always be my favourite author. And this is his best one yet (in my opinion).
I love his words, his characters and how he makes me cry while talking about humans and their inability of saying, what they want to say.

This book is about love, despair, kids, dumb choices, pizza, love, marriage, kids and their parents, money, capitalism, love and a bridge. It's about the connection between people and the irrational things we do, when we feel emotions that are to big to describe.

Backman is a magician. A magician of words and sentences and making one feel and cry and laugh and feel once again.

I wish, I could buy this book a thousand times and gift it to everyone I know.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Addiction, Death, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Abandonment

Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Classism

ellaticonstellation's review against another edition

challenging dark inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I read this after devouring “A Man Called Ove” (I watched “A Man Called Otto” on Netflix recently and I loved it) To be honest, I laughed so much during the witness interviews because all of them were acting so odd. As the story progressed, I understood why. My heart goes to everyone who is struggling in general. But as I always said, psychological issues are close to my heart (I’m a Psych graduate) 

My heart always breaks when parents and children struggle because of the cruel economy. 

Anna Leah, Zara, Julia, Ro, Roger, Lennert, Estelle, the bank robber, you guys are the best bunch because instead of judging the “robber” you guys were pretty understanding. It made me reflect on my life once again. 

Oh, I like the progress Zara had with Nadia (psychologist). Every character was distinct and also inclusive of queer people. As a mom, I empathize with Ro and the bank robber’s burdens. It’s really hard to be a parent. No one is perfect as we all know, but we should always be decent human beings as long as we can. 

Oh, Jim and Jack were so relatable as a father, son, and colleague police officers. Jim also understood the bank robber because he knew how hard it was to survive and raise kids. Jack did learn a lesson or two about empathy. Great touch💙

Fredrik, you’re starting to be one of my favorite authors. More power💕 P. S. I heard that there’s a series adaptation of this book, I will watch it for sure.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

sierrabowers's review against another edition

challenging funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book was a disappointment and I should have DNF’d a while ago. But by the time I realized the storyline was bland, I was already more than halfway through. I finished but ultimately it wasn’t great. I gave 2 stars because it was funny on occasion and had a unique plot. There was some good character development but overall it wasn’t great. It was cheesy, slow, and the timeline made things confusing for me. I thought the robber was a male until 75% of the way through and realized they were a female?? I don’t know how I didn’t realize that beforehand? Or if it was on purpose? I’m not sure. Anyway, I would not recommend. 
I would compare this book to “Normal People” but more funny. Still depressing though.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism

astareads's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Tarina oli ihana, kuten myös hahmot. Tykkäsin siitä, miten ketään ei kuvailtu kuvailemisen vuoksi. Ihmiset olivat vanhoja, nuoria, heillä oli ominaisuuksia joilla oli merkitystä tarinan kannalta, muu saatettiin mainita tai saatettiin olla mainitsematta. Backman osasi kuvailla tapaa, jolla naiset usein tuntevat syyllisyyttä menestyksestään ja sen vaikutuksista muihin. Hän tavoitti hienosti mielenterveysongelmien moninaisuuden.

Mistä en pitänyt, ja mikä teki kirjasta itselleni vaikealukuisen, oli kerrontatapa. Se poukkoili sinne tänne, ei pelkästään juonen tarpeiden takia vaan myös sivuhuomioina, jotka osaltaan toivat syvyyttä tarinaan mutta osaltaan harhauttivat. 

Olisi mielenkiintoista tietää, miten tämä olisi kirjoitettu jos kirjailija olisi ollut alunperin suomenkielinen, jolloin persoonapronominien käyttöä ei olisi tarvinnut kierrellä. Vaikka asiaa kyllä kierreltiin taitavasti!

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Mental illness, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

Minor: Gun violence, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

hannalizzy's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The first half of this book was a low 3 for me, but the second half bumped it up a lot. I thought the ending was super heartwarming and even the characters I really didn’t care for ended up being like-able and like a mini found family. Backman’s style is very confusing and choppy in my opinion, but I love the poetic flair he has, and his dark humor. It makes up for the confusion I suffer from
for the first half of most of his books I’ve tried. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

radfordmanor's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, and Sexual harassment

bookswithbreck's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Kidnapping, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, and Classism

Minor: Cancer, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Xenophobia, Dementia, Alcohol, and War

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

"This story is about a lot of thing but mostly about idiots.

I feel like the supreme idiot for punishing myself to finish this book.  I thought the characters were irredeemable from the start, regardless of any growth, explanation, or context given for their actions or reactions since they seem only to be annoying caricatures.

Reading this book feels like you are actively getting whiplash since it keeps tugging you in different directions, trying to keep the suspense/mystery.  Because of this it takes forever for anything to happen and it never feels like anything has a natural progression.  It's as if you take one step forward and then two steps back in a halting cadence.

Also, this book suffers from what I will henceforth call: Boomer-Humor.  To elaborate, any chance to make a disparaging remark about the youths (TM) it is taken.  This is all mixed in with the attempt to have meaningful personal stories about grief, loss, addiction, suicide (ideation/attempts) and tie it all up into one interconnected comedic bow, and in the end it is a jumbled repetitive mass of knots.

I thoroughly disliked this book.  I will never read anything else from this author.  I did not enjoy their prose, their humor, their character-building...  No redeeming qualities.  It was not for me.  I can see where there would be some people who would like it, but I was not one of them.

Also, because I was curious -
Number of times the word idiot is used in the book: 60
Number of times Stockholm is used in the book: 74

This book takes place in Sweden, but not Stockholm.

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Dementia, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism

ellie_van's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

Minor: Cancer, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Blood, Kidnapping, and Classism