There is something so magical and powerful about this author. He captures these characters from the ether and creates these connections between them that are so unique and so relatable at the same time. I felt like I could have known some of them for years. I loved that the book reached forward and backward in time to tell the story while adding depth and nuance at the same time. This is my favorite book so far from this author and love that he keeps getting better. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley. This was amazing.

What a beautiful, heartbreaking, and raw depiction of friendship, art, and the difficulty of being human. In true Backman form, I felt like I was sitting across from these characters, learning about their lives and hearing their stories firsthand.

Every character and interaction in this book serves a larger purpose, and it was beautiful seeing how every interaction, even one that seemed irrelevant, had an impact on someone in their future moments.

From a group of friends who found "home" in each other, to a girl who is just finding her place in a big world that feels impossibly lonely, this book will have you smiling and crying - repeatedly.

Wow. Another masterpiece from Fredrik Backman! This book absolutely tore my heart to shreds, but it also had beautiful glimmers of hope, friendship, art, and humanity. It took me so long to read this book because I wanted to linger over his writing. I always take my time with his books. Some authors can get a line or two that move you, but man, Backman just packs the punches with his words. Here are a few of my favorites from this one:

“People always say that you should live as if every day was your last, but when you have children you realize that you have to live as if every day was their first.”

“Ted gives everyone more love. But I think you’ve both given each other the same amount: everything you had.”

“Children aren’t responsible for their parents’ happiness, but they still try.”

“I hope you know I was never ashamed of you. I’m ashamed of myself.”

Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Fredrik Backman for sending me this ARC.

⭐️(4.5/5) My Friends - Fredrik Backman

✨Pages: 437

✨Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Thanks so much for the ARC @atriabooks! I know that Backman’s writing can be polarizing, but I am firmly in the LOVE camp. I am so affected by the deep relationships he creates and I always seem to end up crying at some point reading his books. This one definitely had me bawling (a woman on the train came over and gave me a candy to help me feel better because of my bad day. I explained I had a great day and was just emotional because of the book’s ending! Oh, to be a reader.) What a beautiful ode to childhood friendships and the power of art. 🥹

Louisa is a teen orphan, lost after the death of her closest friend. She simply has to see her favorite painting in person, as it’s one of the only things she finds joy in nowadays. She unexpectedly meets the Artist and connects with him immediately. This chance encounter brings the Artist’s best friend into her life, who begins to tell her the story of the painting and the group of friends who embody it.

The Artist’s group of friends had all the magic of the groups in “It” and “The Body” (the short story my favorite movie Stand By Me is based on.) I loved this group and their dynamic deeply. Louisa’s longing to hear about the friendships, the good and the bad and the messy, was so pure. I loved these characters so much! “Beartown” is still my favorite Backman but this is really up there. Some have issues with his writing style, yet he’s the only author whose translated works don’t make me feel at an arm’s length. Some reviews say this book felt repetitive but it didn’t for me, I genuinely could have read another 500 pages about these beautiful souls. Highly recommend for fans of slow, character driven books focusing on adolescent friendship.

✨Content Warnings: Suicide Attempt, Domestic Abuse, Child Abuse, Cancer, Death of a Parent, Drug Abuse, Homophobia, Rape, Panic Attacks, Animal Cruelty

✨Themes: Friendship, The Power of Art, Grief

✨You May Like This If You Enjoyed:
-The Interestings (Meg Wolitzer)
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)

Transcending time and friendships, this is the story of a summer, a painting and a journey that changed the lives of many humans. As Louisa travels across the country learning about Ted and the three friends in the painting, her life (and Ted's) are forever changed. This is the epitome of Backman's spectacular writing style — you will want to highlight and dog ear the entire book — words that will take your breath away. I was deeply connected to Backman’s characters by chapter 5 and sobbing along with them. I was left breathless on multiple occasions as we were taken through this journey of strangers becoming friends and being told the story of a lifetime, of a life-changing summer with the best humans.

This book is such a touching and beautiful story. Fredrik Backman writes in a way that feels honest and full of heart. The characters feel real, and the emotions really stay with you.
I didn’t want it to end. I already want to read it again just to spend more time with the characters.

5 stars. No notes. Favorite author strikes again and I'm devastated. If you don't like it after 5 chapters, he's not for you, and that's okay

So much foreshadowing that it made me anxious, but now that I have gotten through it and know the end I want to go back and read it all again and take in all the amazing lines and thoughts on humanity, that Fredrik Backman wrote. Stories about childhood friendships always resonate with me, they are such important building blocks for who we become. Many of those relationships are ones that stand the test of time, there is a deep understanding of each other, friends who know not just us, but us within the context of our families, where we come from. This book did those relationships justice.

I’ve read several of Fredrik Backman’s books, and My Friends might be his most quietly powerful yet. As always, he captures the ache and beauty of being human with such grace. The story follows Louisa, a seventeen-year-old artist grappling with grief and searching for meaning in the wake of her best friend’s death. When she stumbles upon a mysterious painting, it sets her on a journey that intertwines with the lives of four friends from decades past.

Backman’s writing is reflective and emotional, filled with the kind of small, profound moments that stay with you. Louisa is a compelling narrator—sharp, vulnerable, and deeply real—and her connection with the older man she meets, Ted, adds a moving intergenerational layer to the story. It’s a novel about memory, art, and the friendships that shape us, even long after they’ve ended.

If you’ve loved Backman’s previous work, this one will feel like coming home, bittersweet, thoughtful, and so full of heart.

A world-famous painting connects four teenage friends with an aspiring artist 25 years later. The artist, 18-year-old Louisa, embarks on a cross-country journey to learn about the teenagers in the painting and how the painting came to be.

I can see why people liked this book, but I could not connect with the characters and did not have the urge to pick up the book most nights. While it was my first novel from Fredrik Backman — I’d read a short story of his and enjoyed it — it will not be my last. I know Backman is a talented writer; this one just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Atria Books for an advanced reader copy of #MyFriends.

My Friends by Fredrick Backman is a beautiful book about relationships and human nature. Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down, I just had to know what happened within the multiple groups of friends. The characters are written in such a beautiful way that I immediately was invested in the story and concerned for their wellbeing. I've read every book that Backman has written and this has to be one of my favorites!

what an absolutely beautiful and sad story. Fredrick Backman has such a unique way of writing that usually take me a few chapters to get used to but once I do I am sucked in. This story, following Louisa, on the journey of her life and discovering the story behind her favorite painting was touching. Ted was the best grumpy old man you could ask for. Joar is so sassy and fully himself. Ali is bold and fearless (even when she’s actually terrified). And kimkim, the one who started it all, is so pure. I don’t even know how to describe this story and the journey it takes you on. I loved it. I laughed and I cried. This is truly one of a kind and I absolutely loved it.

Everything you expect from a novel by Fredrik Backman. It is beautiful, funny, deep and compelling. Flawed, but humane characters' friendship is the main theme. I loved the discussion of art!

Wow! Backman does it again! What a wonderful, funny, deep and heartfelt story of friendship. I laughed, cried and will genuinely remember this book for a long time. I will be recommending this to my friends! Thank you so much for the ARC of this book!

“The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else’s belief in them.”
There is just something about a Bachman novel. I don't know if its the way the story is told, or the rich characters, or just the uniqueness; but each one is so special. 
My friends is about a friendship frozen in time in the most famous painting in the world. We go back and forth between the present time of the painting being displayed, and the story of the friends during that time. We slowly meet these friends and how the summer the painting was created, they became family. 
Bachman takes the messiness and hard parts of life and turns into beauty and hope. It's a testament to that fact that art will always reach the person who needs it most.

A lot of stories, some of them long, inside a story which is long.

Our artist is dying. He meets Louisa who is one of them. On the surface this is the journey of Ted and Louisa returning to the hometown of the artist, Ted and their friends. As we follow the journey, we read sentences outloud to our spouses because they are hilarious. Also on the journey, we have to put the book down so we don't break into sobs because the story and the writing are so beautiful that it is just hard to keep going.

One of the best books that I have ever read.

This is a beautifully written story on loss and enduring friendship.
Backman has a unique way of writing these characters their stories are real ,raw and flawed
We follow their journeys which are full of emotional, heart wrenching while heartwarming. You’ll find yourself crying at one time and laughing at another.
Give this book a read it’s worth it .
Thanks netgalley

MY FRIENDS - FREDRICK BACKMAN
5⭐

18 yr old orphan girl Louissa breaks into an art auction to catch a glimpse of a world famous painting only to come later in possession of the same painting.
Trd a 39yr old man is grieving the loss of his best friend ( the artist of the painting) and together both Louissa and Ted travel to his hometown and tells the story that led to the creation of the world famous painting.
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I hv no words to describe what all I hv felt while reading this book.
There isn't a single emotion that I haven't felt and true to Backman's style and his narration it will break your heart before joining it piece by piece.
I,just like Louisa in the book wanted to meet all the 4 friends, the way they rallied around each other and got out the best from each of them was so endearing.
There are so many quoted that I have highlighted and I never annotate in books but this just needed it and now I want to go back read it again and savour the whole book one more time!

Frederik Backman has a lot of talent as a writer. Everything I have read by him is compelling, and features not perfect, but perfectly human characters. The story of childhood friends who need and who complete each other. I was not as compelled by the story as many others who have read it and raved about it, but like his other books, Backman really takes readers into the heart and soul of life.

When he was a little boy, someone I knew long ago was painted into a mural that was found on the side of a building downtown of where I live now. He told me he remembered the day the artist visited them at school, had the students form a line and photographed them running through a hay field, then painted the mural. Later the artist incorporated other scenes of importance to the local area, and the art hung for years until the building burned down one fateful day. Sadly, although the mural was later recreated, the line of children running through the field was not included in the new work of art. I often drove by the mural in it's glory days, and wondered about those children and where their lives led them; how they were immortalized on the side of a downtown brick building. The story of My Friends by Backman reminds me of that - the back and forward story of people who became the subject of a piece of art, Each of us has a tiny story to tell, and we are all linked together; moments of significance or insignificance; it doesn't matter, really, What matters is how all of our lives are connected and how what we think, feel, or do truly does matter in the long run.

My Friends is now my favorite book by Fredrik Backman and it will definitely be one of my favorites of the year! Backman is excellent at writing about the human experience and creating wonderful characters. This book will make you laugh and cry. Magnificent storytelling!

Synopsis:
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 a wide expanse of sea. But Louisa, soon to be eighteen years old and an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise. She is determined to find out the story behind these three enigmatic figures.

More than two decades before, 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 every morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that, after a chance encounter in an alleyway, will unexpectedly be placed into Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to discover 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 anxious she becomes about what she'll find. Louisa's complicated life is proof that happy endings are sometimes possible, but they don't always take the form we expect them to.

Fredrik Backman's signature charm, humor, and attention to the poignant details of everyday life are on full display in this funny, moving novel. His most heartfelt and personal tale yet, My Friends is a stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of art and friendship.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced digital copy of the book for my opinion.