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title: My Friendsauthor: Fredrik Backman, Neil Smith
published: 5.5.2025
publisher: Atria Books
Source: Book of the Month
genre(s): contemporary
pages: 434
format: hardcover
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | BookBub | StoryGraph | Goodreads
rating:
the blurb
#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later.
Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.
Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.
a few notes
❗trigger warnings: abuse, death, grief, mental health
POV: 3rd person; multi
setting: Sweden
keywords/phrases: childhood, abuse, dysfunction, love, friends, art
tropes: interpersonal relationships, coming of age, dysfunctional family
spice: 0/5
language: 5/5
mood reading: in the mood for a deeply emotional read.
awards:
- Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction and Nominee for Audiobook (2024)
- She Reads Best of Award Nominee for Book of the Year and Contemporary Fiction (2024)
my review
To be fair, I’d read Backman’s grocery list and feel honored. So it should come as no surprise that I loved this book. In fact, it just may be my favorite yet. It runs the entire emotional gamut, from laughter to tears, from sorrow to joy to anger. There’s really no way I can do this book justice.
This book, above all, is about love, the profound kind shared between friends who are closer than family. It’s about friendship based on life experiences, of trauma bonding, of the perfect melding of personalities. This isn’t a lighthearted read, although there are moments of pure joy scattered throughout, rubbing shoulders with utter sadness. The story weaves together threads of grief, happiness, fear, laughter, sadness, and anger. It is a book that continues to resonate with me, even days after finishing it.
On the surface, the four friends are very different people. Joar is loud, sarcastic, and fiercely loyal to those he loves. Ali, the lone girl, is independent and smart, using her street smarts to protect herself against those who would harm her. Ted is very quiet in comparison to Joar and Ali, an introverted soul who loves his friends with his entire heart and soul. And the artist… KimKim. He makes Ted look gregarious, an intense soul who speaks little but loves deeply. His inner demons are strong, and his friends are the sole reason he fights them. Instead, he pours his troubles into his art, his first painting creating a journey for Louisa, a young girl he meets just once. That brief meeting changes everything for her.
This is one of those books that will reveal more of it’s deep moments with subsequent rereads. An intense, gorgeous book.
About Fredrik Backman
Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (soon to be a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks), My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, as well as two novellas, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer and The Deal of a Lifetime. Things My Son Needs to Know About the World, his first work of non-fiction, will be released in the US in May 2019. His books are published in more than forty countries. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2025 52 Books Reading Challenge
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