What can you expect from a book that’s only about 70 pages long?Maybe a short bit of entertainment to feed your hunger for literature and help you escape the real world for a little while? But what if that short book actually could, magically, leave you feeling like you just finished something twice that length, full of wit and a story all its own? The Answer is No pulls it off. And of course it does, because it came from Backman, one of the very few authors who can work that kind of magic.

I’ve read a good chunk of Backman’s work by now, and one of my favorite things about him is how easy it is to see pieces of myself in the character(s) he writes. In this book, I found a slice of my own personality tucked inside Lucas. The way he looks at other people, the way he genuinely enjoys his own company, the way he finds happiness in the simplest stuff by firing up a video game, digging into a plate of pad thai, it all felt familiar in me. And that’s exactly how Lucas likes to spend his days… right up until someone leaves a frying pan on the floor beside the recycling room. Just like that, he gets yanked clean out of his cozy little comfort zone. And that’s it. That’s the story of this book. Sounds simple, right? It really isn’t. And that’s the beauty of this book: a straightforward plot packed with rich characters and clever turns.

If you’re hunting for a short read that actually earns your time, or you’re looking for the perfect doorway into an author you’ll want to binge afterward, The Answer is No is a must-read.

My Favorite Bits

• If you imagine how you would spend a free evening, not an evening where you’ve planned things out but an evening in which all your plans have suddenly been canceled, and now you find yourself in your comfiest pants in a warm, cozy apartment, thinking: So . . . I can do whatever I want all night? That’s Lucas’s entire life.

• Because happiness for Lucas is very easy, it’s everything he already has minus humans.

• It’s not that Lucas hates other people. He just really enjoys being where other people aren’t.

• The truth about problems is that the problem itself is never actually the problem. It’s always the people involved who are the problem.

• I think most people who want to be happy try to add things to their lives. But really what maybe they should be doing is taking something away.

• You’re fortunate, Lucas. You view loneliness as taking people away. But for most of us, loneliness is just adding more loneliness.

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Author: Fredrik Backman
Publication date: 1 December 2024
Number of pages: 68 pages

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