Anxious People – Fredrik Backman – Episode 71

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman was recommended by one of the thousands of Buddies/listeners out there, and it did not disappoint. A super original funny, sad, clever, novel that flew by. The Buddies got into a few arguments on this one, but they did find common ground when it came to a few topics, such as: Swedish pizza toppings,  unethical business dealings, and wanting to go to Swedish prison. So check out Anxious People and keep the recommendations coming!

Intro: (0:00-2:15)
Stock Up/Down (2:16-27:36)
Favorite Characters (27:37-30:20)
Love/Hate (30:21-41:12)
Casting the Movie (41:13-43:20)
Conclusion/Review (43:21-45:35)

Next Book: LEVIATHAN WAKES by JAMES S.A. COREY

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

welcome buddy book club I’m Dylan here with my friend from Stockholm Keith hey hey good buddy I have the exact same note I said I’m here with d-man a real stock homian if you know what I mean but did you add the hey hey which according to the video I watched on YouTube is the appropriate way to say hi in Sweden oh yeah yeah I guess all right hey hey the Buddy book club it’s the bridge that brings us all together just like Roger said in this book well we don’t want people on Bridges listening to this yeah maybe stock down Bridges but we’ll get there here at the Buddy book club we’re breaking down the best sellers and this week we’ll be discussing anxious people by Frederick Bachmann it’s a listener recommendation which I’m floored about we love when we hear from you guys and it was just great to uh to get some racks there was there was a few which will probably be going through a few of them throughout the next uh year so who knows but we’re gonna start with anxious people it’s like a four or five on Goodreads something crazy it was Kristen from Nashville appreciate it Kristen we’re both flattered but if you’d like to record event a book for us to read or Regent don’t spend any past episodes you can visit our website bunnyvilleclub.com or slide direct DMS on Twitter or Instagram buddy book club podcast you can listen to us on iTunes Spotify wherever you get your podcast so please download And subscribe keep anxious people is it’s kind of like inside Man meets crash yeah yeah that’s that’s fair I I actually was thinking it was inside man the whole time but yeah with a lot more social issues and whatnot I mean this this book definitely is something that if you were I’m gonna say college just because I’m an idiot but you may be in high school or something you could write a whole big essay on the meaning behind this book human interaction stuff like that but the great part about it it’s just a story about people that’s enjoyable but there is a lot of meaning behind it but you don’t need to really dive too deep into that if you don’t want to you can just enjoy the book yeah more surface level people here you could definitely do a college course on this one when they were throwing the Rings in the bottom the pool I was like no no I’m just gonna do laps I’m cool on the surface here there’s no I don’t need to dive down there okay let’s jump into stock up stock down Keith what do you got for stock up for anxious people talk up being a plain Jane and uh I know this is a big point of contention something that was harped on often when I worked with d-man he was like oh Keith you don’t like exotic foods oh Keith you just eat your turkey clubs and your cheeseburgers and your chicken kebab with just rice and no veggies yeah well I’m sorry I wasn’t eating like a kale flavored tofu burger like you assuming but accurate that’s that’s what you were getting all the time but this book really goes to bat for people like me who are very straightforward not picky but strong-willed and determined and know what they like that’s what I would say you’re making the case for a racist right now yeah like someone who’s stuck in their ways someone that likes cheeseburgers is racist though no but you’re like someone who’s strong-willed you know first of all there’s a way difference between liking a certain thing that only affects you and then projecting your it’s not like I’m like everyone has to eat cheeseburgers only and turkey clubs this way that’s what you’re doing if anything you’re the racist wow good point you put a reverse that let’s go anyways but this book really does goes to bad for people like me they’re like let’s order pizzas and instead of just being the typical order which is what I would do is all right let’s get a cheese let’s get a pepperoni there’s two we have eight people here nine people here and then is anyone have any allergies anything else that like need a specialty order we’ll get a small of that right that’s what it is those are the three pizzas you get total they order eight pizzas for each person individually respect there’s people out there starving I need food and you’re doing this what a complete waste of I mean it really does show you that that these people were all about themselves and it somehow almost got got them to figure out the who the the bank robber was but didn’t really but almost did plain chain the only person that didn’t pick their pizza was Leonard he was just like all right I’m I’m fine with it whatever I think it’s important to have all the pizzas I will disagree with you there it’s a hostage situation so we’re not concerned about wasted Pizza also couch Pizza as I call it which is just pizza that’s left out wherever at any time still good a week later the officers that are coming in to like break down the crime seat after they’re gonna be jazzed but we also don’t give enough credit to our girl Roe Julia’s wife who crushes leftovers or crushes food more than any character in any story I’ve ever read and so she was probably super excited because she knew people weren’t going to finish additionally we also don’t know what Swedish Customs are like here we get large pizzas and people grab a slice or whatever the case is when you’re in Florence Italy you get a personal pizza and it’s on nine inch pizza it’s not like a big pizza it’s like four slices so maybe in in Sweden the pizzas are smaller which ties in nicely with my first stock up Swedish pizza toppings so I have the mental capacity of a squirrel most times and that’s why I really do enjoy audiobooks is because I can kind of do something else as I’m listening even though I am focused I am listening I swear but if I like sit down to read a book I’ll read 10 pages and be like oh look there’s a fly and like be like I have to kill that flyer they’re like oh look there’s laundry I should probably do this I just can’t read a book it’s just not gonna happen so the second I heard this they keep saying pizza capricosa so I was like okay I gotta stop this audiobook and immediately figure out what it is pizza capricoza which turns out is mozzarella Baked Ham mushrooms and artichokes I think we can both agree that sounds terrible but Pizza capricosa I guess it’s a big thing in Sweden other great Swedish pizza toppings meatball pizza seems pretty standard to us but we’re now forgetting swedes have their own meatballs so Swedish meatballs on a pizza I’m already game but the kicker here they usually serve it with a bearnaise sauce which is like an egg yolk white butter sauce like if you’re a pizza Dipper that sounds phenomenal they have a good dosed which is instead of mats it’s like a Swedish cream cheese not really sure about that but back to your Kebab comment from earlier they did reference this in the book to Kebab Pizza which is like shaved donor Kebab chicken pepperoncinis and Kebab sauce which sometimes will have lettuce and or french fries well like afterwards not baked into it so I I was like really this Kebab pizza sounds pretty dang good it’s very sauce-dependent though we know Kebab sauce is really the most important thing yeah 100 the Kebab sauce is the most important and they also do this like pizza salad so for my unders it’s like served aren’t with every Pizza in Sweden supposedly and for my understanding it’s like a Tangy coleslaw that serves with every pizza and some people put it on top you know like a little crunch to the guy don’t hate that there’s a lot of research yeah yeah I did well the last one I’m going to say is the the Africana which is the most infamous the pizzas of Sweden and it’s a banana curry powder peanuts and chicken or ham sometimes it’ll have raisins on it thoughts what are they just like a bingo board they’re just [ __ ] pulling things off and throwing on there like what is this what are you doing you spin the wheel three times yeah yeah raisins okay throw it on yeah that sounds very questionable I’m probably all right although if someone was gonna we were in Sweden someone said we have to try it I’d be 100 in for sure but I mean I wouldn’t be happy about it but yeah so Swedish pies you know I love the idea of mixing up pizzas to cultures it’s great it’s great uh what else you have a stock up wine and secret storage area stock up wine just because I I hated on it a couple weeks ago or a couple UPS ago they busted out here it makes everyone friendlier it starts solving problems we get some salacious stories going out there yeah my bad hand up on that one and I love the secret storage area being like Oh yeah you got to keep a secret you know secret stash somewhere which never works for me because I just like got some like Godiva or whatever they’re called caramel chocolates oh those are room in the fridge I forgot they were there so I forgot for like two weeks I went back open it up I see them there they’re obviously gone in within a day or two that right you know like once I realized they were there I’m going to continue going back no freezer just to the fridge interesting and then the last one just a waterfront property values stock up so Zara only visits properties that Overlook water and bridges yeah and they’re all super cheap apparently oh so I thought everyone knew about waterfront property and it being expensive but I’m gonna go to Sweden and just start buying these up but there’s like a real stock up like I’m actually gonna go put money in there because apparently she was like yeah this place is trashy it just looks over this beautiful bridge and water it seen yeah I’m like wait what so I don’t really understand how she was going all these apartments that were cheap that I also had that everyone’s just concerned there’s going to be a bridge jumper you know they’re like waiting for the next bridge jumper so they’re like yeah I don’t I don’t want to be having my orange juice in the morning and watching someone jump off a bridge the most expensive property you can probably purchase is looking at the what’s it called the San Francisco bridge Golden Gate Bridge and that has the most jumpers I’m pretty sure of any bridge in the world so I don’t know if that my theory it’s been disproven or I don’t think it’s the opposite there’s a direct correlation between a number of people that jump and property value I’m I’m also interested and not to make this a more of a conversation but here we go

you said that San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge has the most jumpers of any bridge is that an actual fact I could have made that up okay I’ll look I’ll have a quick audit on that uh most frequently used locations where there’s one in China and then the second one is Golden Gate Bridge China’s got us again God dang it but you did kind of just like cruise over that first stock up which was the hidden mind you forgot that our girl Estelle also had a pack of smokes in there did she yeah she had a pack of cigarettes I missed that yeah I mean I’m not big cigarette guy so I didn’t uh didn’t stock up it sorry in a hostage situation you’d be like past that bogey over here right yeah for sure yeah yeah 100 it’s pretty flimsy hostage situation where people are just like having their own little parties in different parts of the the apartment I always had the question back when we were in early 20s and we would go buy like a place at like 9 30 a.m you know on the train or whatever and see someone outside smoking a cigarette and I was like Jesus Christ I can’t imagine that however would you do that if you go up to a girl that was smoking a cigarette if it was like the love of your life you sang out there and rip a cigarette with her 100 what do you mean yeah really yeah what no question for me I was like I don’t know that’s it’s tough that’s a tough look it’d be a weird intro just be like hey can I bum a cigarette and then you just just go for it because I feel like sometimes people sitting outside smoking at nine o’clock in the morning they want to be alone I just think of whenever I’ve smoked cigar which is very rare the next morning I wake up and I want to jump off one of these [ __ ] gold Gate bridges your mouth is feels and like imagine being like you know what I’m gonna re-up with that but it’s 9 30 in the morning I’m gonna get that every morning maybe that happened since meeting would would change someone’s life who knows that’s true addicted to cigarettes so that’s good too my next stock up is uh unethical business moves I mean paying a guy like Leonard to ruin an open house is honestly one of the most genius ideas I think I’ve heard of in a while do you know where it’s ripped from by the way I have to cut you off yeah cut me off Dirty Work the movie oh one of my favorite movies

off I told you that story about how I was very uncomfortable my first day at work and someone said dirty work or something along that line it just blurted you know when you say things you’re like I don’t even know why I said that I just blurted out that Chris Farley line about the damn Saigon [ __ ] that bit my nose off and no one had any idea what I was talking about I was as uncomfortable I’ve ever been in my whole life you can’t go backwards from there like there’s no way how to give me a laugh kid pity laugh no I would have laughed out loud because I love the reference although you didn’t give me the same courtesy when I when I started so maybe I wouldn’t oh that’s that’s probably true I’ve grown and change I’m a better man than I was before yeah and dirty work very very good good call Norm Macdonald rip yeah paying someone to ruin over it seems like so easy too because it’s an open house right so you could kind of do anything right and he obviously has many packages with this you know the rabbit package uh which I think in the in the Netflix show that’s a Swedish Netflix show so it’s subtitled he has like a ball gag in stuff like that which is funny but can you think of something that you would do because as you know we’re both homeowners now I luckily didn’t need to get into any like bidding war or anything for this house but them walking around being like oh does that smell like mold you know it smells like mold that kind of stuff is like really smart to me I thought this was and then Leonard is just the icing Icing on the Cake but I’m thinking maybe a neighbor can come over and just start being unruly and they I think they might have referenced that as a different time but those kind of things make a lot of sense to me is there anything comes to your head when you think of yeah like in Step Brothers when uh when they were doing the same thing they’re dressed up as Nazis as the neighbors and things like that yeah that makes a lot of sense yeah yeah actually then Step Brothers too yeah maybe even like going ahead of time and like put a dead fish somewhere just so it smells really weird or something did they do that damn it wow sometimes like I’ve seen all these movies in my life and I’m sure they’ve influenced some similar to anxious people I’m sure they’ve influenced my life in many ways that I don’t even understand also can we talk about who is it Roger and Anna Elena a thousand percent on Adelaide outside I thought that was like nicest most considerate things you could do is making someone feel good and helping him achieve his goal and Roger like reacted so poorly to it I didn’t understand that his ego was hurt who cares she’s helping you achieve your goal it’s really his dream to buy and sell and find the best prices she’s literally helping you out doing doing that and not taking any credit yeah I think the bigger issue is that she had a successful career right so he gave up his life so that she could have a successful career which is like brought me a river yeah my dream situation yeah right exactly what’s the issue but because of that he hasn’t yet found any purpose and like his purpose was his kids who are now grown so he plays some pickleball one time but no seriously though like this whole flipping houses flipping Apartments kind of thing was his and she was along for the ride and he viewed like the rest of their life as hers and he was along for the ride so to know that she kind of took it into her own hands and was actually kind of the Puppeteer it hurt his feelings I can understand it but I’m I’m I’m with you it was a nice gesture I thought if she was doing it to help him win it wasn’t it wasn’t malicious everything was for him and then she never took any credit you know and then he found the only sin was that he found out about it but it was like sweet I think it’s romantic just if anything a hundred percent and I think that’s part of the book in itself is how we perceive things right so someone might be doing something one way and think hey Anna Elena’s like oh I’m doing this because I love him and to be really nice and him being like wow she did this to basically control the situation and like she’s this is her no well the way she reacted right away she knew it would hurt his feelings which again shows his like fragile ego which I was like all right bro get over yourself Roger like grow up Roger’s got his own issues who says they open a dampener and doesn’t actually open the dampener when you’re lighting a fire if you made the mistake it’s okay you made the mistake I told you the guy’s got a fragile ego but when that gun was brandished he Dove right on her he was willing to take the bullet which that’s it stand up guy at the end of the day a lot of this book too was like you get the inner monologues all these people or what like how would they do like things but it to me it’s like actions over thoughts and feelings what do they actually do and were they being a good person when they did those things and like I’ll get to it with Zara shitty person like I don’t care what her what her inner monologue was let’s hold off on that till later I mean this has to be a stock up because I think we both share it but being an idiot stock up I mean the the whole book is just kind of like Hey we’re all idiots yeah we might think we’re not but in lots of ways we all are idiots I couldn’t agree with you more I’m probably the biggest idiot I know and I know a lot of idiots that first chapter was uh that spoke to me a little bit too much that was basically the first chapter it was like we all suck at everything we’re all dumb we’re all awful at sex I’m like who who wrote this who is this you’re like does it say keep the front I don’t remember the awful at sex part but yeah maybe certain things spoke to me

uh I always think about it in real life because when you were a kid and you looked up you know you saw someone in high school you’re like wow like they got it they got it figured out you know and then when you’re in high school you looked at someone that was in college really they got it figured out and when you’re in college you’re thinking the same thing well at the same time all the people older looking down those people are so dumb but we’re all really just the same we’re just all yeah kids that have okay now we are in adult bodies what do you ever talk about getting away with a crime stock down yeah the ending this book is supposed to be the super happy oh the bank robber got away with it and the moves into the apartment she gets away the crime but then she basically implements all the people in the house that are basically know that she’s getting with crime the two police officers they’re all kind of basically on the hook at some point here for for letting her get away with this she still doesn’t have a job she doesn’t figure out a job she still only gets to see her kids like once in a while it’s not like she’s got her kids back I think she just should have got arrested it didn’t really make sense getting away with it none of her problems were solved and then we look and this will this will tell you what what a solver problem gets arrested look up Sweden jails the solenta prison it’s five times better than my room not even like it’s the nicest place you’ve ever seen they have like the nicest prisons they make you they have your own kitchen you get all this stuff you have your own room yeah it’s a king-sized bed they have king size I’m not even kidding look this up solenta prison okay it’s nice than anything I’ve ever seen and so what you do is you go to prison a couple years you hang out there you maybe you learn in a new vocation you start reading some books listen to Buddy book club yeah exactly when you get out of jail that shitty husband you had and the shitty dad you had he’s gonna be sick of those kids you know who now gets the kids you full time because he’s gonna be sick of them so really it’s a win-win-win-win-win you got a nice break you don’t have to worry about a job you get everything paid for you you got a king-sized bed go to prison Sweden what are you doing here why not instead Escape like she did murder your husband ex-husband yeah and oh and go for prison go to prison but then once you get out then you’re kids no well you’re going for much longer if you murder your husband really I thought prison sentences were all the same [Music]

I agree with your thought process as it being particularly Keith thought process I understand that um what does that mean I think that’s on point I don’t understand you can’t see your kids when you’re in jail though yeah but you’re gonna see them full time once the dad realizes he hates the kids that’s a lot to bank on I I’m not banking on it the dad cheated with your boss yeah the dad’s a petty person [ __ ] yeah if you did care about the kids then he would make sure that his mother of his children that he just [ __ ] over is at least put in a better light instead he tries to like make like ruin her life also there’s a lot of things that occur that that show he’s not a good person so ultimately he’s gonna be a shitty Dad yeah he’s gonna not want the kids eventually that’s just fact yeah and there’s also like the little thing at the end about the kids being like Oh my parents are fighting whatever the case is they would know like oh their new stepmom is your mom’s old boss like how did that work out like oh right our dad’s a total piece of [ __ ] it’s gonna be tough for her parent because you like don’t want to tell your kids how shitty a move that was by your dad because you don’t want to [ __ ] him up but uh right that’s that’s bottom that’s bottom of the barrel stuff right there my first talk down is the whole good cop bad cop thing that they were trying to play in the interview room usually we see some good cop bad cop work but Jack and Jim Father and Son combo they were not doing very well in there I’m gonna say that that was a bottom tier good cop bad cop and additionally we have to bring up that are we sure that Jack is actually a good police officer because he was getting these offers like he had an offer to work in Stockholm and become a stock Homer but he turned him down and the stock owners want him because he’s was such a good cop but he was terrible at interviewing these people he had no control over the conversation whatsoever there was eight people that were witnesses to whatever happened he couldn’t get one of them to crack he had it shot at all of them he couldn’t even get a little bit out of one of them or none of them use a pronoun ever I don’t know if then Sweden he’s pronouns but not one pronoun ever used yeah at no point did they slip and say her or something yeah right I mean I understand Zara not being able to crack she’s a she’s a tough nut to crack that one right but the rest of them like it seemed like it would be pretty you know you’d start corroborating stories and figure out that no there’s something going on here I just don’t think Jack’s actually a good police officer bottom line I think that’s terrible yeah well his dad is worse than he is he goes to the door and the reason he lets direct gym yeah goes to the door he sees the bank robber and he feels bad for her immediately he’s like oh I’ve been on the job a while I just know she’s having a tough break he’s like can you stop pointing the gun at me she’s like well it’s not even real and it was real it was a real gun so right there if someone told me oh the gun’s not real I first think oh this person’s a huge liar right immediately I would think this person’s not trustworthy but he’s like ah I still trust her it’s like she just directly lied to you about the one thing that’s important the weapon in her hand yeah but he could probably tell that she was telling the truth like she knew it was she didn’t know like she was who knows but yeah Jim Jim was a blundering guy he’s like the cop in the 80s movie who just like eats donuts is like always covered by powdered sugar and he’s like oh no I gotta get out of the car I did like Jim a lot don’t don’t get me wrong I thought it was a wonderful man I did like how they introduced them too because I always had a tough time with the names like early on especially when they introduced them and they just introduce them as an old cop and a young cop and then it was like here are the differences between them and I was like damn every book should do that you know is he just like this is with this one cop here’s the other one and then we’ll tell you the names later don’t worry about it yeah yeah exactly I thought it was pretty clear that they were father and son I I thought that was I sniffed that one out oh early on oh okay wow nice good for you I didn’t know that it just the way the the interaction they were a little bit too personal yeah for sure but you never know with the buddy cop my next stock down slowly letting farts out on a plane

so it was referenced in the book I think Zara was making a a metaphor or something and it was kind of saying how if you slowly let him fart it’s like people who suddenly let farts out of the pen like they think they’re being sneaky but they’re not and she got me like I had to pause the thing and like really contemplate life because uh yeah I’m sorry I have a hand up I’ve slowly let farts out on plane it’s the pressure when you get up in the air the pressure comes it just forces gas out of your body I can’t help myself and I thought I was being secret and evidently I’m not and I’m sorry to all those people who have sat next to me that concoction of rotten eggs that they’re sniffing was me I apologize genuinely I I I’m sorry and I will do my best not not to do that anymore do you tend to have flatulence on an airplane I’m usually a little bit too tight tightened up I feel like you see what I’m saying like once I get off I realize oh wow I’ve been holding something in this whole time yeah you know so you’re a better better person than I am uh do you have any other stock down last one suggesting books to someone stocked down wow personally Estelle says she has an affair with another man but it turns out there wasn’t they weren’t having any sort of sexual deviants there but it was just them exchanging books and suggesting books to each other and kind of cutely underlying or highlighting Parts in the book that was a fair I completely agree with her that’s that’s cheating right there that that one that hurt that would hurt me you know yeah that type of thing but I wanted to ask you what are the things that you’d be most threatened by or like would be not actually cheating but cheating to you that isn’t actually you know I mean like not a relationship physical cheating but emotional yeah yeah definitely if the wife was like going to her new guy friend’s house or even old guy friend’s house because he was gonna like make her a wonderful meal I’d be like I knew it was gonna be this you get you get that here like why are you looking for that elsewhere so for sure or if she was like hey uh me and my new friend Dale we love to watch Survivor on Wednesday night it’s a big no no that’s our thing what do you mean what what yeah um but if she had a friend she was like Hey we’re gonna hang out and eat popcorn and watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills I say all the power to you you get you kids go have fun now I’m I’m okay but yeah I think I think the food thing or if it was like a a Sporty Spice thing if she joined like a bowling league and had like a really good guy friend at the bowling alley that then they’d like would go out on the side and Bowl together I’d be upset about that yeah I I hear that what about you if someone was playing Tower Wars or uh DOTA without you no I was thinking like if if someone was there like ah this person I work with is so good looking or whatever or anything I wouldn’t even be bothered by that but if they’re like man this person’s super funny what the [ __ ] is this [ __ ] this guy you know like pissed me off or if uh funny looking yeah super athletic or anything around that where they’re like yeah you should have seen him on the softball field like or a ping pong you know like what are you talking about ping pong let me let me play them you know anything that’s like that I’d be much more uh much more threatened by than like a good looking person if she was like have you seen Dale’s knife skills I’d be like whoa whoa I can cut chives way finer than him you sign up immediately for a class

just cue the Montage of me Rocky in the mountains working on the knives foreign characters uh I like Roe the best oh really which is goofy funny I really really like that uh you mentioned that she was like eating everything yeah that Julia would hide sweets and then uh she would find him and eat him and then she was like [ __ ] you I’m I’m buying sugar-free chocolate I know you don’t like those and Rose ate them anyways just to send a message he’s like yeah at a principal I’m eating these and I was like yes I like that a lot and she was the only one that was kind of like keeping it level and low-key at the the house she was just like always getting blamed for [ __ ] and yelled at but she was like just trying to be fun and Goofy I liked her the chocolate anecdote was funny because we kind of have that at my house where the wife will if it’s there like she’s gonna eat it where I tend to savor things like I’ll hold on to it for a while you know if I had if I had a Kit Kat I might break it in two eat one and save the other one good for you that’s impressive well it’s just it’s not impressive or anything it’s just the way I am and so she’s just like you can’t leave those things around because like they’re going yeah so it was funny because it was a random anecdote from the book that that tied directly to my life but I actually found the two of them to be man if I may say so okay yeah my girl was Zara I I oh the energy was there you know she was a cynic I I she was you know that was the worst she was terrible in all the ways that I found her to be the most interesting of characters like thought she was the smartest in the room in a lot of situations she was but like that does not matter you know what I mean like to be smart but also have like no compassion for other people like not not really a good thing but I just you know she always had a quip she always had a comeback uh yeah I I dug it sharp tongue you know I I like all that a thousand percent disagree first of all the the letter to her as like one of the twists or whatever and it just being like it wasn’t your fault yeah yeah it was what the what yeah it was a little Goodwill Hunting I would completely understand that that if Zara at the point when they came it was like Hey I’m so sorry like I can’t do anything this is just how the system works and like this is how it is but instead she was this cold mean you should have invested you like idiot like to the person that committed suicide in the beginning yeah yeah um so she deserved it she literally she wasn’t she’s a shitty person and then what happens after she gets a letter oh yeah she changes she becomes a better person she starts having empathy no she doesn’t do any of those things she becomes even worse she continues to project her shittiness to everyone else talks down to everyone and listen I understand she’s having some tough problems like up upstairs that nobody knows about but you know what a lot of people that have felt worse things than her that have gone through way worse things than her that don’t have the intelligence she has or the station in life that she has that aren’t [ __ ] everyone they’re nice people still even though they’ve done the exact same stuff so I have zero empathy for [ __ ] her worst character in the book by far she has some retribution she fell for a rabbit you know that was that was good she’s a furry she’s into furry play like who cares I don’t what does that why does it make me like her more what uh yeah you know she ended up donating a bunch to the the suicide camp or whatever that doesn’t make you a good person you could still be shitty to everyone even if you donate money she’s working on herself you know what I mean no she isn’t she had 10 years what do you mean she’s working on herself she didn’t have any breakthrough she’s still a shitty person end of the book she decided to start working on herself she’s already made her Millions at the bank and she’s like you know what I’m gonna retire now it’s like oh after you’ve ruined hundreds of people’s lives yeah now you finally figured it out with all the money in the bank account you have oh I’m gonna donate one percent to charity look at me Pat me in the back now come on D Man Jesus Christ teams are over here uh let’s get to your lumps what’d you love I think I think it’s just great all around writing I mean it touched on every single problem in the world somehow was touched on which uh made for a little bit tougher read but I honestly wrote after the first chapter and we mentioned already but I wrote wow that was really well written clever funny but also super depressing which was the rest of the book that was the whole book it’s described as that yeah it really brought on the gamut of emotions you know it was it was a heavy topics involved here you know with people’s Financial burdens their romantic burdens the actual life burdens and you know the suicide stuff like it was some some heavy topics The Way It Was Written it just it made it fun to read my first love was the I thought the jokes in it like this book was funny the banter was great it wasn’t necessarily like laugh out loud funny it was more like smart funny you know like clever like you said but not clever in a Frasier way you know or like like you have to be super smart I think this is funny it was just like really well written and clever in ways I re-listened to some of the stuff and I was like oh like because it was funny and I was like oh that was great how the story was told I really liked as well with this book where it wove itself together in a way that wasn’t necessarily confounding and it would be in the current time with the the hostage situation and they’d end it on some like kind of like pseudo reveal and then it’d go back in time and like give you the context for that reveal I thought that was a really good way sometimes we see people play with time in books and going back in time and going forward and it is too confusing or like it doesn’t really make sense as to why but this format I found to be really enjoyable to read yeah how he kept all the moving pieces together and it was very very unique and I don’t know how you would ever could write something like this I could only write this linearly and like 90 of the jokes could not be in there because I just wouldn’t be clever enough he must had a crazy outline with how everything’s intertwined you know like how each character connects to one another and if you describe this story too like it’s like if you just read the paragraph on the plot description doesn’t really do any of the justice of what it is you know it’s like not really about any of the plot it’s about idiots which is kind of crazy yeah that’s really what it is so it is kind of cool a lot of times I was just thinking how they translated it because there’s a lot of puns and things like that that probably had to be changed like house tricks I’m sure that was something else right that would have to be something out and I still didn’t really get that one yeah it was supposed to be like a a pun on the name but I’m sure there was something different you know in Swedish yeah no it’s it’s a really interesting point that I didn’t even think about is how they managed to like work this all out with being translated to a different language because sometimes those things definitely don’t translate well it’s like Lord Voldemort and uh I am whatever his name is yeah I’m Tom Riddle how they did that in other languages they had like how to do different things there to do that yeah I was wondering the same thing the whole time reading this like they’d had to have the best translator rewrite this and and there was actually like one actual joke in the book that I found to be quite Pleasant did you as an Irishman did you enjoy that one oh what was it the Guinness the genie turns the whole ocean into Guinness oh yeah I love nowhere to piss yeah oh we gotta piss in the boat yeah yeah for sure the relationships I thought all the relationships between the different people I’m not talking about the tangential ones but you know the husband wife combos the wife wife combos the father-son combos I thought they were so just really well done and somehow even though this is a relatively short book they all felt fleshed out I completely understood each person’s perspective and how that relationship worked in such a short time while also getting an actual story behind it I never felt like bogged down in the details of the relationships and you know just the point that how important kindness and compassion is in life and it’s really the little things we do to each other that help get us through the day I just thought that messaging was it was pleasant it was nice it was really nice to have what about hates hates what did you hate biggest thing was for me was just the twists I didn’t really love them I already talked about the Zara and the letter thing that just that annoyed me because I really didn’t think Zara deserved that letter I think it should have been like you’re a terrible person change I don’t care what’s going on in your head it doesn’t justify you being a terrible person to everyone else you know that’s just that’s not how it should work I also really really didn’t like the bank robber reveal being a woman okay it didn’t really make a ton of sense this could be my prejudices but like the whole book seemed to force that there’s there’s just like zero circumstances where again maybe the Swedish the Swedish language is different and they don’t use pronoun I know other languages don’t necessarily use gender nouns or whatever the [ __ ] it’s called and maybe it’s just easier to do that but like then to your point interviewing and never slipping up and I’m always hiding that and this whole thing of like again my Prejudice is that I just don’t think a woman would be that stupid or impulsive or dumb to do what a man would do I can’t think of one woman that would do what this woman did whereas I can think of like 10 guys I’d be like yeah I could see them going to a bank you know like I don’t know maybe that’s my Prejudice again but like you put a wedge between a woman and her children and I’m pretty sure that woman would do anything yeah yeah but I think she has a gun she could do a lot of other things if that’s the thing oh yeah totally I get it sleep in a king-sized bed totally and I also think that I mean again this could be the US courts but 99 of Courts would die with the woman too you know so anyways they just set everything up to be that and then the twist didn’t even matter it didn’t matter if she was a woman or not and so there’s like this big build up that you think of this everything seems real everything seems real and then they turn that on his head it’s like well this is also a Woman by the way even though no one mentioned it in any interview no there’s never been a gender usage of it all and I mean the interview is not one person’s been like the I mean they had they could interview the bank teller and just be like it was a woman talking to me like it’s just so that’s it didn’t make much sense that’s the point is that they could have talked to that girl and like it wasn’t a big reveal either it didn’t have anything to do with the story it wasn’t like they were only looking for men and then the big twist was that it was a woman that would be a good reveal right but it didn’t matter at all that she was a woman so it just annoyed me I just made it in the book not seem rational it made me go completely out of the book all of a sudden being like what why are they doing this I had no feelings whatsoever about it I thought it was like I thought it was an okay twist honestly I’m getting amped up with Zara in this and you’re just like whatever I don’t care I thought it was a nice little because I was like I did not take you out of the book it didn’t take me out of the book it just made me think like oh God that never said they just called that person the bank robber like they never mentioned it was a man or woman and I assumed it was a man you know what I mean just like everyone else we just assumed it was a man for some reason and it really got me thinking more about like why did I assume it’s like because they robbed a bank and I do agree with you that like there’s a bunch of male idiots out there and I think women would probably be a little smarter than that they painted it as a man the whole time but they never said it was if it’s a duck and it quacks like a duck and it’s feathers and then you’re like that was a cat the whole time you’d be like oh I guess you know it doesn’t really but why would a cat have feathers I I don’t know why would a woman rob a bank when 99 of bank robberies are men and then why would you hide that what does it matter I don’t know I’d be interested to know what what the what the listeners think that have read this I don’t want to be talking taken out of the book and I think it devalued all the other stuff which I don’t think it mattered at all that’s why I can tell you’re passionate about it which I appreciate but uh I’m not uh my only hate was that it was sometimes just like our podcast it was hard to follow [Music] and that was that was few and far between really it was just a couple times and this room this is really my only hate I’m really just nitpicking here and that’s just also for me because we do have to take into consideration that I am an idiot just sometimes when they reduce some things like and I know the rabbit thing was supposed to be confusing like it was when they’re like oh there’s a rabbit in the bathroom and it was like wait what the [ __ ] is happening here but I was like my brain was super bungled like it was like someone giving me a super hard brain twist teaser that I think was a real rabbit yeah I was like and then when they found Leonard I was like okay there’s a guy with a rabbit head but like where’s the rabbit I was like oh wait that is the rabbit wow I’m really dumb um so maybe that was just like the uh the author trying to show us how all how stupid we are or maybe it was just me but yeah it was a couple times I had issues following along well like I think it also goes back to like the untrustworthy narrator like it’s ocean 12 is what I I got really upset with I always finish 12. you remember that movie where like the whole time the narrator is just not telling you something so there’s a twist it just upsets me that it’s like well you just held this out so that there’s a Twist yeah like you gave us false information for exactly twist purposes that annoys me instead of being like when you see everything again the second time you watch it like oh that’s amazing like it was right in front of me I love that no I’ll read it again and be like yeah I guess I could be a woman but like it doesn’t you’re not oh you’re still talking about the woman okay yeah yeah I’m so pissed about that and Zara Zara sucks too I can’t believe you like Zara that’s annoying foreign

[Music]

I casted some actors though for America oh I love that are they doing it American no but I’m gonna make it okay ice did start it on Netflix today like literally watch the first 10 minutes and it seems like it’s really good honestly really it seems like they put some some cash behind it because it looks like really well filmed and whatnot so but who do you have for the American cast I’m gonna run through it because I have like seven or eight of these all right Jack and Jim Nicholas Holt from uh the menu Fame yeah we did Jim Mel Gibson oh so a little bit goofier role for him but you know he always plays the cop so yeah returning to an opera yeah absolutely Zara give me uh the devil’s wear Prada Meryl Streep version of her same thing yes talking down to everyone perfect Roger and annalina I wanted to tie in Lethal Weapon so bringing Danny Glover back to Roger just the curmudgeon yeah that checks that there I don’t know if he’s too old for it and then analia uh analina I did Jamie Lee Curry this I think those are both really well done yeah okay I mean Danny Glover’s probably too old but I still like it you know what I mean a lot easier you’re going to see them pairing up because I think of the chemistry yeah Julia and Roe Kristen wig for Julia and Roe Melissa McCarthy oh you like that bridesmaids Estelle Kathy Bates I mean Waterboy Mom let’s go easy peasy and then this is a very expensive cast for Leonard TJ Miller from uh oh yeah yeah Silicon Valley or whatever Silicon Valley yeah but Ah that’s the that’s a cast that’s the run through do you have any really good I had all the ones you had I liked them so much double down yeah I I just I just agreed to all of them although I’m having a tough time thinking of Meryl Streep falling for TJ Miller oh [ __ ] I didn’t realize yeah

no you know what I like that I like that she’d be a little bit dominant yeah yeah no I’m I’m for it still never mind I’m keeping that maybe Leonard could even be like Woody Harrelson give me some Woody uh let’s let’s get into it would you would you recommend the book it was recommended to us we like passing along recommendations you know rabbit earring some Corners writing some love notes in it uh would you write a love note to someone and recommended this book to them I liked it probably not at my alley but I’m glad I read it I mean not only would I would I dog ear some pages or anything but I think I’d I’d leave my my apartment key in it I I liked it a lot I think that what I liked about it the most is that we’ve Now read a lot of books on this podcast it’s very different than unique other books we have read which seems like and we do like certain genres so of course those are gonna be more popular but it’s just such a unique idea for a book and it works so well that I was pleasantly surprised it’s one of the few that it would kind of fit anybody it doesn’t really matter what kind of books they like to read I’d say like hey give this one a shot I think this one has a super high floor even if it’s not right your eye like me I’m more about I don’t really want to be in this world I want to be outside this world I don’t want to be depressed like this kind of book is a little bit it’s still it was still a good read it was super enjoyable either way yeah exactly I think what you’re kind of saying is that if you recommend it to anyone they wouldn’t be like I didn’t like it they’d just be like right yeah it would be hard to imagine someone hating it so I’d be like no I wasn’t really that great other than the twist yeah maybe the twist maybe the twist but hey you need someone else to talk about that with yeah uh where we head to next next we got Leviathan Wakes James S Corey so sci-fi yeah futuristic you know sweet so we’re gonna do that and then there’s also another Scorsese movie coming right there we’re going to follow up with I think that afterwards killers of the flower Moon by David Gran that movie comes out mid-october so we’re gonna read that beforehand and get get ready for that I’m honestly I’m excited for both of them this was a fun fun book after 50 Shades which was a terrible book and now to get into some like sci-fi and then seems like kind of like a murder mystery kind of thing so yeah yeah I dig it so thanks again for the recommendation Keith always good chatting with you about these books and uh please don’t text me about the man woman swap thing okay promise all right all right bye now