Ruminations on Fredrik Backman's Work

I’ve been feeling very conflicted about Backman lately. And to clarify, I’ve read A Man Called Ove, Britt-Marie Was Here, and Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer. Besides perhaps the latter (I suspect it’s because of its short and punchy length), I haven’t been very impressed. They have become a bit of an NPC-type book on my shelf—a sort of easy read that’s predictable. I just feel that they won’t have a lasting influence or impact on me. This was further proven by my venture into reading Anxious People for the first time and DNF’ing it a hundred or so pages in. As you can tell by the triple digit page at which I halted, officially, I had strong intentions of finishing what I started, once and for all. But I am not the strongest solider. It was truly unenjoyable in every way for me. I didn't like any of the characters or plot or even the storytelling. I truly and honestly gave up on Backman at that point. (Update: I've also tried to read My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry and also DNF'd it a whopping 15 or so pages in.)

Most times when I encounter a book that’s 'bad,' I’ll still finish it for the sake of closure or to make an entertaining post about it on this account because I always keep it real over here. But I was so utterly ambivalent towards it. I just can’t bring myself to care about his characters at all. His plain language and style of writing just falls flat on the page for me, and Anxious People was particularly repetitive.

I understand his messages—in Britt-Marie Was Here, it was to never judge a book by its cover, A Man Called Ove was that old people have stories and inner lives of their own and you also never know what they’ve gone through, and Anxious People was a wild goose chase and about how stories can interweave and people interact in wild ways. But I just… don’t care. They’re a bit of a drag to get through at around 300 pages each, and I don’t feel the pain of the characters or humorous moments jumping off the page. The writing is bland, and the storylines are predictable. So what exactly are readers here for? I simply don't understand his cult following. You can find a million heart-tugging stories with characters who are actually three dimensional, they are a dime a dozen. I don't really see the special aspect of his work, the thing that keeps readers coming for more. 

I know Beartown may incite a bit more of a heart-tugging reaction in me, and it’s popular on the platforms I post on. But I haven’t touched it because I’m trying to protect my peace. I sometimes find accounts of sexual assault or anything similar triggering as a woman with that very real fear looming over me, and I just don’t enjoy reading about it if I don’t have to. Why would I put myself through that mental strain and fear? I am unsure if I'll ever be swayed strongly enough by it's message and level of enjoyability and value that others claim it has to read it. 

Overall, I regret my decision to pick up nearly all of his books at the thrift store before deciding if I really enjoy his work enough to own physical copies. I suppose I expected myself to love his work, it seems completely up my alley in terms of subject matter, themes, etc. I am not completely sure if I even read a single one of his works before picking up at least three or four. I learned my lesson with trigger happy book buying in one fell swoop in this case.