I obtained this e-book through my Kindle Unlimited Subscription.
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: December 1, 2024
Summary:
In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?
Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.
My thoughts:
I am still relatively new to Fredrik Backman’s work but I have read enough to know that if he has written it, I’m going to read it, so when I saw this short story, I immediately grabbed it. I didn’t even know what it was about – I just saw that it was by Backman…and I loved it. If it is ever published in a print version, I will be buying it!
I love the characters the Backman creates. They might be ornery and quirky, like Lucas here, but they are always so richly developed and are such great caricatures of humanity as a whole. This book is both hilariously funny and thought-provoking in the best way possible. So many little nuggets of wisdom tugged within this short story about people, community and life in general.
Highly recommend!
