This book is equal parts charming and raw. One minute you're laughing about the quirky characters and the bizarre turn of events when a failed bank robbery becomes a failed hostage situation, and the next minute you're sobbing because Backman has hit on some kind of deeply relatable characteristic of what it means to be human and anxious and sad. And then when everyone protects and helps each other, it reminds you that the world can be a beautiful place (or at least... Sweden can be).

When I finished this book, I just hugged it and ugly-cried.

The story is about a bank robber who fails to rob a bank and then accidentally creates a hostage situation while running from the cops. The bank robber is never a threat to anyone, and the hostage situation is a failed one too, but the hostages all stay in the apartment they were viewing when the bank robber came in, and in the process all of the characters' fears and anxieties are illuminated as we learn about their relationships with themselves and each other, as well as how they came to be in the apartment that day.

TW for suicide.