Everything about this book should point to me loving it. I am a big fan of this author having loved all his previous books, especially the Beartown series. I am also a big fan of art - both street and gallery and you can regularly find me either in my local gallery or pounding the streets looking for the next impressive mural or street furniture decoration. I am also friendly with a lot of artists through volunteering for my home town's annual street art festival.
The other main thing that this book is about, the art of friendship, is probably the real sticking point for me. It features characters who grew up together and, many years later, are still close friends. I don't have that. I don't even have close friends now. I am a loner. So I guess that might have been the missing element that manifested the disconnect.
And that's OK. It wasn't the book for me. I did finish it, it was a bit of a slog. There were elements I loved. The cat was awesome. The meeting between Louisa and the Artist, Ted finding Louisa, Louisa talking about Fish, the stand-in janitor, those elements I found interesting but, after that, when we went back in time to the days before the painting, the painting, and the days after, I think that was where we fell apart. I did also enjoy reading abut the connection between the Artist, Joar, Ali, and Ted which was strengthened by and despite of their individual adversities. All of which culminated in the creation of the painting which was where we came in.
It might have also been the non-linear telling of their story. How Ted kept flitting about rather than telling it from start to finish, chronologically. I understand why it was told in that way, but I didn't get on with it. Which is a shame. But again, it's OK.
But, like a few other books that I didn't connect with initially, I will try and get hold of the Audiobook once it has been published. Maybe listening to the words will allow me to better connect to the characters. It has worked before, worth a try, no? Watch this space.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

In My Friends, Fredrik Backman delivers a profoundly moving and quietly powerful story about art, memory and the quiet persistence of love. Told with his signature tenderness and insight, the book follows almost-eighteen-year-old Louisa, an aspiring artist drawn to a small detail in one of the world’s most famous paintings: three tiny figures at the edge of a pier, barely noticed by most, but unforgettable to her.

Louisa’s fascination with the painting sets her on a cross-country journey to uncover the story behind those three figures. What she discovers is a tale that stretches back decades — to a group of teenagers seeking solace and kinship on an abandoned seaside pier. Backman weaves their past with Louisa’s present in a narrative that gently explores themes of grief, connection, and the small moments that shape us.

This is not just a story about a painting. It’s a story about finding beauty in broken places, about chosen families, and about how art can both hide and reveal the deepest parts of us. As Louisa edges closer to the truth, she also finds herself — slowly, quietly, but with incredible emotional resonance.

Backman has crafted something delicate and deeply affecting here. My Friends is a beautifully observed story full of warmth, wisdom and wonder.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

With most authors who write in a consistent style, you either love it or hate it. Fredrik Backman is unusual in that his style is similar from one book to another, but in some I don't mind it, and in others it really irritates me. This is one of the examples where it irritated me, particularly in the first half of the book before I'd got into the story. He has a tendency to repeat things a lot, for emphasis, but it can really make the story drag. He also has the very annoying habit of putting in spoilers for the story. If something bad is going to happen, he tells you at least ten times before it does. I always find that maddening in any book - it's like the author is smirking at the readers because they know more than we do. It also means there are few surprises and the entire book, even the lighter moments, are sunken in a sense of impending doom.

'My Friends' is a strange story with characters it took me a very long time to get to like. Ted is a middle aged former school teacher, and Louisa an 18 year old care-leaver. Both are united by love of a particular painting, and are brought together by the death of its artist. Setting off on a train journey across Sweden, they find they have more in common than appearances suggest, not least that each is grieving a beloved friend. Over the course of the journey and subsequent events, Ted relates the story of how the picture came to be painted over the course of a summer twenty-five years ago, when a small group of friends in an impoverished seaside town determined that one of them should win an art competition.

Although it falls into the 'feel good' fiction genre - books that are supposed to give you a warm glow about humanity, and packed with deep and meaningful discussion of emotions - most of the story is really downbeat. Domestic violence, inadequate parenting, substance abuse and the general misery of poverty are not just themes but the very fabric of the novel. It manages to be both really depressing and implausible at the same time in how things work out.

Things do improve in the second half of the story when it gets more compelling and there is less foreshadowing as there is less left to foreshadow. I did read the last part eagerly, so I must have enjoyed it to some extent. I was left feeling mostly baffled by how a writer can both move me and really get on my nerves at the same time. This certainly isn't his best book - 'Anxious People' and 'A Man Called Ove' are better - but if you like feel fiction that's full of homespun wisdom, philosophical musing and emotional naval gazing, you will surely like it. And if you don't (I would say I mostly don't), Backman does it better than anyone else.

I'm a big fan of Fredrik Backman and Beartown is possibly one of my favourite books of all time. Whilst I have enjoyed his subsequent novels, none of them have quite lived up to that one, but 'My friends' certainly comes close.

With a dual time line the story takes place in the present day and 25 years in the past, with the two threads connecting by our main protagonists 18 year old Louisa and 40 year old Ted who tells her the story of the extremely valuable painting that has just come into her possession.

This is such a beautiful story of love, friendship and how being with your best humans is the best feeling in the world. Backman manages to develop the plot at a perfect pace, leading you to think you know what's coming and then subverting your expectations brilliantly. Highly recommended.

<i> I would like to thank Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. </i>

My heart breaks, aches and truly soars - 5*

I love this book. I truly do. I will definitely be buying this in hardback when this book is released. I need to have a physical copy of this book. I need to remember this book - and I know this book will be in my heart forever, but I need to see the reminder of the book that broke my heart and rebuilt it in two days.

I could have read this book a lot faster but I wanted to hold onto every word there was. Backman paints heartache and truly heartfelt moments with the words he carefully sculpts and moulds. I remember reaching 30% of this book and thinking, "Please don't disappoint me. I already love this book too much." I think the reason I loved the book this much is for one simple reason: the characters. Deeply complex and maybe a little too relatable, I loved every single person in this book. Each character felt like a real person; they were three-dimensional with dreams and fears.

I cried at multiple points in this book. I don't really relate to art. I always felt I wasn't really good at it but maybe I didn't have the right people telling me that art was beautiful and art was filled with so many emotions. I don't truly get art - but I get the emotions felt in this book.

Pick up this book. It's an emotional rollercoaster, but that's life and this is the perfect embodiment of it.

Backman, thank you for creating this!
My favourite book of the year (so far).

My Friends by Fredrik Backman is a book about friendship and found family, but also about grief and loss.
Twenty five years ago a group of teenage friends spend their Summer days together, each escaping their own difficult family circumstances and finding comfort and companionship with each other. When one of the group creates a painting of the sea that captures the freedom and joy of their friendship and that glorious summer he has no idea that it will become one of the most famous paintings in the world or that it will change the life of one young woman forever.
Louisa is about to turn eighteen and is on the run from the latest in a series of foster homes, one of her few possessions is a postcard depicting the painting that she has carried from home to home for years. She is reeling from the recent death of her best and only friend, and when she learns that the painting is on display ahead of being auctioned she knows she needs to see it in person. An unlikely encounter results in the painting falling into her hands, something that terrifies her given the value of it. Unsure what to do with this life changing turn of events she decides to trust fate and embarks on a cross country train journey with an unlikely companion, one of the group of friends depicted in the painting. The long journey gives them plenty of time to adjust to one another, and it is an adjustment for both of them, but it also allows Ted to tell Louise the true story of the painting, a story that will hurt but ultimately heal them both.
This book will tear at your heartstrings and I defy you not to feel a little choked up by the bittersweet ending, but it is absolutely worth any tears you shed along the way. I don't know of any other author who so perfectly weaves together humour and heartbreak and have you laughing and crying within moments. His ability to create characters that feel so real is unmatched and the unlikely duo of Ted and Louisa have found their way into my heart as has this book.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

The older I get, the less forgiving I am when it comes to the toxic ways men often write women.

Because of this, I don’t read many male authors anymore.

Andy Weir, Stephen King, and Fredrik Bachman are my exceptions.

I need them to neither stop writing, nor turn out to be super-problematic.

I’m lookin’ at you, Gaiman.

I loved everything about this story. I loved Louise and Ted’s enemies to friends arc. I loved the dual timelines. I loved how everything converges into one perfect bittersweet ending.

I’m particularly in awe of how a translated work can retain such poignancy, humour and insight.

Zero was lost in translation.

A warm hearted, joyous read that I was captivated by and completely fell in love with. Highly recommended.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It reminded me a little if A Little Life but lighter and more humour. The characters were well established and the train journeys were a great way of breaking up the action in the stories in the post and the present. It also had a message about what makes art

I can’t describe how much I loved this book! It was heartfelt and funny and sad all at the same time! What a happy coincidence when two people unexpectedly bump into each other and it changes the course of forever! I just loved all of the characters and the way that the story unfolds.
Fredrik Backman is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Beautifully heart warming and yet completely gut wrenching at the same time.
Backman seems to understand the human condition like no other. The loneliness of being an outsider, the fear of living with bullying and abuse, the reality of being a girl and the pain that all of these bring. Yet finding your people can bring light and love into that world of darkness.
And the author's truest gift is being able to intersperse all of that with moments of laughter and joy.
An emotional roller coaster.

No one writes stories which can leave you laughing and crying (often on the same page) quite like Fredrick Backman. He is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. Loved this one as much as his others

I spent a couple of weeks thinking about how to compose this review as - cheesy as it sounds - I was too full of feeling and reacting to what I had read to be able to compose a lucid response.
Fredrik Backman creates characters so full of life and feeling and suffering and joy that they find their way right into your heart, so much so that their hurt becomes yours.
This book is about friendship, about love, about moving on and standing still. It is about being human in a world where there are mountains to climb and storms to weather but there are also hands to pull you up along the way. The story moves between past and present and explores human connection in so raw and beautiful a fashion that I am struggling to put it into words. Sometimes this book felt quite dark and contained some potential triggers but it also made me laugh out loud on occasion. Backman is the master of an irascible character and I loved the interactions between Louisa and her reluctant guardian Ted but it is the lives of four young friends over a couple of summers that really will not leave you.
Grief and love go hand in hand in life and in this very powerful novel too.

It’s been two days since I finished this book and I still can’t stop thinking about it.

Everyone already knows Fredrik Backman is my favourite author so I knew I was going to enjoy My Friends before I even started it but I didn’t think it would beat Beartown as potentially my new favourite FB book!!

I adored everything about this book - the characters, the exploration of grief and navigating through life after losing your person, the importance of friendship and found family, and most importantly the theme of art. Fredrik Backman explores all of these themes with such tenderness and care, I swear I was crying over every second sentence. No one writes the human experience better than Freddie Back.

I don’t want to go into the book too much without ruining it for everyone but be prepared to fall in love with all of the characters you meet in the book. Louisa is definitely my favourite from this book and I loved every single thing and flaw about her.

Lastly, I don’t think the last sentence of a book has ever made me as GAGGED as this one did. Truly the most perfect way to end this very beautiful story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for sending me an early copy in exchange for my honest review.

Set in two timelines, this is the story of friends, The Artist, Ted, Ali and Joar.
Then we have Louisa.
What worked for me; the friendships, the realistic traumas and the arts serving as a vehicle for understanding life.
What I was not keen on - despite liking Backman’s other work, out of personal preferences, especially when it comes to sentimental and/or sensitive themes, I expect fresh and unique narrative styles. The art as the metaphor (it worked well in some places, in others, it felt cliched).
If you like Backman’s The Bear Town and Anxious People, and especially, A Man Called Ove, you will most likely love this book.
I was so looking forward to My Friends, and I am glad I read it, but it was not a mindblowing read for me.

This book offered a delightful break from reality. It’s not overly complex, but sometimes that’s exactly what you need. Heartfelt story.

“I love you and I trust you.” Oh my heart! This book was so incredibly moving – it is easily going to be one of my favourite books of this year, and one of my favourite things I’ve ever read!

I hardly know where to start with writing a review, but this was just a beautiful book. Fredrick Backman is truly a wizard at creating the most pure-hearted, totally flawed but incredible characters that you can’t help falling in love with.

My Friends is a story about the power and importance of childhood best friends, and how one summer can feel like a lifetime. It’s about the power of grief, love, trust, and how “great art is a small break from human despair.” It’s both hilariously funny and heart-breakingly sad at the same time!

We start by meeting Louisa – an 18-year-old artist who has grown up in foster care, and has found strength in her best friend Fish, and a postcard of a famous work of art. When the famous work is up for auction, Louisa goes to see it and ends up unexpectedly meeting the artist himself.
From here, she ends up on an adventure with the artist’s childhood friend, Ted.

I love the way the story was written – mainly through Ted’s memories of one day, the day that inspired the famous painting. But the story jumps backwards and forwards around that day – and in the present day 25 years later, so that we gradually build up the full picture of what has made them all who they are now. It’s quite dreamlike, the way things move around and are remembered.

The memories of the 4 best friends that summer, as 14-year-olds are just the best parts of the book for me. The friends are bound together by their difficult childhoods, and the love and trust they find in each other is so beautiful.

I enjoyed how a lot of the details were kept quite generic – we don’t know the name of the town where they live, Ted is described as foreign but we never find out where he’s from. We don’t even learn the artist’s name until towards the end, and we never find out Ali’s real name! But I felt like that was the point – they’re very special people, but they’re also any group of teenage best friends, drawing strength from each other where they don’t have that at home or at school.

It's not very often that I feel like I want to immediately read a book again as soon as I’ve finished it, but I will definitely be buying a physical copy of this as soon as it comes out!

I honestly don't know if I have the words to describe how beautiful this story about friendship is. I feel very inadequate trying to put my thoughts into words that would do it justice - I blame Backman for this.

Right from the start, Backman was holding no punches with the emotions and it just never stopped. The way he shows us the worst of humanity and yet still come away feeling hopeful is masterful. These characters and their love for each other was just friendship perfection.

If I had to be negative, it had the beginnings of feeling meandering and lost about two thirds of the way in, but thankfully it picked back up again very quickly.

It's beautiful, and traumatic, and funny, and hopeful, and did I say beautiful? It's so beautiful! (I highlighted so much text)

Rating: ALL THE DAMN STARS

" Under no circumstances are we allowed to be adults, Ted, that's fatal! All adults die, sooner or later,' haven't you noticed?"

Over a decade ago A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman grabbed the attention of the reading world- a beautiful, melancholy and yet hopeful story.

A decade or so onwards and Fredrik Blackman has continued to write successful novels .. My Friends is the latest and it is seriously wonderfully moving novel and friendship, loyalty, tragedy and beauty between a group of friends.

At a city auction a painting is displayed- Louisa needs to see the painting; she has lived in foster care for years and is grieving her best friend but one constant in her life was a postcard of the aforementioned painting called The One of the Sea. After a chance encounter between the artist ( C. JAT )and Louisa she finds herself the beneficiary of this priceless piece of art.

It is as she receives the painting that she meets Ted -childhood friend of the artist. Louisa does not want the responsibility of owning the piece of art but finds herself on a train journey with Ted where he gradually recounts the story of the artist's life and his friendship with himself, Joar and Ali. All of the groups of friends have had challenging family lives and this is the bond that unites this misunderstood quartet.

Fredrik Backman moves us between high comedic reading and then pulls us back with a hard dose of reality and tragedy. This is a saga of young lives and deep bond of commitment. This is also a love story to the power of art and difference- recognising the talents hidden within and a love story between friends- that is captured perfectly in your teenage years( and maybe just fro one summer)

Every few pages, there is a pearl of wisdom- it actually feels like a book of quotes is needed!!

Entertaining, reflective and very moving- this book gripped and could not be put down - a summer read for 2025 !!

Quotes:

When you get old, gravity pulls the corners of your mouth down, the road to a smile gets longer.

But there's a difference between being loved and receiving love.

Bullies always have small hearts but good memories.

Art is a nakedness, you have to be free to decide when you're comfortable with it and with whom.

Art is what can't fit inside a person. The things that bubble over.

Book Review: My Friends by Fredrik Backman
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5)

As a long-time fan of Fredrik Backman, especially after falling in love with A Man Called Ove, I had high expectations going into My Friends. Unfortunately, this novel, though moving in its own right, did not quite live up to the brilliant highs of his previous works.

My Friends tells the story of four teenagers whose friendship forms the backdrop of a pivotal summer. Their connection leads to the creation of an artwork that will impact a stranger’s life 25 years later. The novel attempts to blend humor, heartache, and the complexity of human connection—a combination that worked so well in A Man Called Ove.

The premise is intriguing, with the idea of a painting being at the center of the narrative, symbolizing the power of art and friendship. Louisa, an aspiring artist, becomes the key character as she embarks on a journey to learn more about the painting’s creation. While the novel beautifully captures the essence of youth, rebellion, and the bonds we form in our formative years, I found myself struggling to connect with Louisa and the other characters as deeply as I did with Ove or the quirky inhabitants of Anxious People.

While Backman’s talent for capturing the intricacies of human emotions is undeniable, My Friends felt more disjointed than his previous novels. The pacing was slower than I anticipated, and at times, the emotional payoff didn’t quite hit the mark. The book also meanders a bit, losing its focus on the painting and the teenagers' bond in favor of a slower narrative that, though still heartfelt, felt a bit too distant.

The structure, which involves time jumps between the summer of their youth and Louisa’s present-day journey, is effective in theory but didn’t have the same sense of urgency or resonance that made A Man Called Ove so captivating. While the writing is still deeply thoughtful and layered with wisdom about the human condition, I didn’t find myself as emotionally invested in these characters as I had hoped.

Final Thoughts:

My Friends is certainly a moving read, but it didn’t have the same emotional depth or magnetic charm that I’ve come to expect from Fredrik Backman. While there are poignant moments and Backman’s ability to tap into the universal themes of friendship, love, and loss is ever-present, the novel lacks the same punch and immediacy of his previous works. For fans of Backman’s style, it’s worth reading, but for those hoping for a repeat of A Man Called Ove, this one might fall a bit short.