“Being smart is the worst thing one can be in modern society. All it ever means is more work.” – 4.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: pad thai with peanuts, the “board”, inconvenient neighbors, wifi passwords, big piles, angels, committees, new video games, dill, kitties, and… frypans that ruin lives.

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.

This quirky story was so funny, I actually laughed at how loud a few times! If you are familiar with Fredrik Backman’s work, you will definitely recognize his style here.
We have our main character Lucas, who is a very happy and proud loner and introverted guy who just wants to be left alone to play video games and eat pad thai… but a frying pan ruins it all. Well, you’ll need to read it to know what happens!
What I really love about Fredrik Backman is that he is able to write really funny stories and make them wholesome while subtly sharing his views and comments on humanity. He has a really special way of writing that I find fascinating and very unpredictable. For example in this book, a small detail I really liked was how the reader distinguishes the characters by what they were wearing instead of their names – that was a really simple detail but it made the book more interesting!
There were plenty of quotes I absolutely loved, so I’ll leave a few of them here:

“Best to be like dill, Lucas has concluded. Not like basil, the most anxious and ingratiating herb, but also not like cilantro, that conflict-seeking lunatic. Be dill. Nobody cares about dill.”

“Lucas opens the door with the defeated manner of a sausage that dressed itself up as a carrot to avoid being eaten by a bear, only to be found by a rabbit.”

“Absolutely zero people go to therapy because yesterday they were sitting in a comfortable chair, eating a perfect pizza, drinking a good glass of red wine, watching a really funny movie. So that’s how Lucas lives, all the time.”

“I usually keep my peanuts next to a jar of peanut butter, so they understand what I’m capable of!”

It was exactly what I needed to read at this moment. It was a really fun and easy-to-read short story!