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.

After reading A Man Called Ove, I wanted to pick up another story by Fredrik Backman, so I decided to listen to this short story audiobook since it was under two hours long. While I did enjoy the narrator overall, I don’t think she was the best fit for this particular story. Since the story is told from a male perspective, having such an animated female narration felt a little distracting at times. Her delivery was very over-the-top, which didn’t always match the tone for me. She would’ve been better narrating a middle-grade or YA book. Because of that, I’d probably recommend reading this one physically rather than listening to the audiobook.

That said, the story itself was absolutely ridiculous in the best possible way. It was absurd, chaotic, and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. The characters felt intentionally exaggerated, almost like caricatures, which only added to the humor and charm. Beneath all the comedy, though, there was also some sharp satire about human behavior, neighborhood dynamics, and the frustrating absurdities of bureaucracy. It managed to be both hilarious and surprisingly reflective at the same time.

I also found Lucas to be a very relatable main character. At his core, he’s just a guy who wants to be left alone to play video games, drink wine, and eat his Pad Thai…with peanuts, which becomes an ongoing point of hilarity throughout the story. There isn’t a huge amount of character development, but he was still entertaining to follow, especially as the increasingly bizarre situations kept piling up around him.

Overall, I thought this was a witty, clever, heartwarming little story that worked perfectly as a quick read. If you’re looking for something humorous, thought-provoking, and short enough to serve as a fun palate cleanser, I’d definitely recommend giving it a try.

**This short story is part of a Pages to Popcorn episode, which you can listen to here.