Having recently finished “My Friends” by Fredrik Backman, I am happy to have had the chance for the Advanced Reader’s Edition e-copy; thank you NetGalley and Atria Books!

I loved this story of enduring friendship; but it wasn't until I had finished at least half the book that I actually began to enjoy the memories and adventures of this group of friends. It ended up being a book that I’m glad to have read, but was just too jumpy and scattered for me to truly enjoy.

I feel like I lived 1,000 lives with these characters. They’re MY FRIENDS now.

Backman has done it again and I’m honestly kinda speechless. No one understands what it’s like to be human more, no one’s writing is a clever, and if anyone asks me to “name 5 people who would you want to have dinner with dead or alive?” he’s on my list every time.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
My Friends releases May 6, 2025

“Being human is to grieve, constantly.”

My Friends is an homage to friendship, and the lasting influence of art. It’s in knowing that you don’t have to be rich in life to be rich in companionship. It’s the embodiment of a picture being worth a thousand words.

The characters that Backman has brought to life are ones that feel so deeply. Their ability to navigate hardships and perceive the world around them at such a young age is an endurance that takes most individuals an entire lifetime to grasp.
These are characters you can’t help but want to hold close, wrapping them in a protective bubble, and cherishing all the ways they make living a little bit more bearable for each other.

A part of me is dying that the cover wasn’t a vintage postcard depicting C. Jat’s painting of the pier as I think it would have encompassed the tone of the story much better, while adding a layer of sentimentality.

cw: mention of suicide, self-harm, physical abuse, SA, suicidal ideation

I loved how this story shows the timeline of the friends at age 14 and 40 as they are going through life and experiencing joy and heartbreak. This story includes so many characters who have become hopeless but they have each other. Their friendship is such a beautiful part of the story. It shows how joy can grow even from a lot of heartbreak and trials with the help and encouragement from friends.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I knew early on that this book would tug at my heartstrings and make me feel emotional, and boy did it. This is a masterpiece. Absolute perfection. I won't take any criticism on it.

This book made me cherish my friendships and want to be young and high on life again. I adored this, and I feel like I need to wrap my friends in a warm hug and tell them I love them. I may just re-read this every year and revel in the feelings that only our closest friends can give us.

Fredrick Backman has done it again! I adored this book and couldn’t wait to squirrel away time to devote to finishing this book once I started it. 10/10 must read!

I'm not even sure how to start this review, because I feel like this is a book I never knew I needed.

Fredrik Backman - wow the author that you are - I'm in awe of this story and how well crafted it was. Forever a fan now.

We go back and forth between present day and the past, while we go through a few POVs. Normally this is confusing for me, but I think it actually helped carry more weight during the narrative. We follow Louisa and a few other characters (they rotate depending on who's most important in the stories from the past). While we got to know them, a common thread develops that really makes the phrase "one of us" so important to not only show how they all can relate to certain traumas, but how they then come together in the most beautiful way.

This is my first novel by Fredrik Backman, so I don't think I was emotionally prepared, but this book took me through the wringer. I laughed out loud, teared up, felt my heart wrench, and everything in between. Most of the story is told from the POV of teens (even though some of the narrators may be adults in the present day), so having that perspective of the anguish and upbringing these kids go through from THEIR POV as kids is intense. Truly makes me appreciate my life and MY FRIENDS so much more.

I loved this book so much -- I laughed, I cried. I bookmarked so many quotes and passages, but I'm not supposed to quote them until the book is published. The story is about friendship, loyalty, second chances, and love. But there is also abuse (very difficult to read), grief, hardship and despair.

Joar is fiercely protective of his mother -- his father, a horrible drunk -- takes his anger out on his wife and son. Joar has the biggest heart and finds comfort with his tight group of friends, but he also is hot-headed and quick to fight -- never starting a fight, but always reacting to misdoings.

Ted is my favorite character: loyal, a voracious reader, smart, funny (although mostly when he doesn't mean to be), neurotic, and a joy to read about.

The Artist (aka KimKim) is so talented, yet so unable to believe in his artistic abilities. Joar practically forces him to enter a painting contest, because he knows Kim's only chance for a future is away from their small town.

Ali was late to the group of four, but she brought a vitality and joy that the other three fed off of.

Then there is Louisa, a soon-to-be 18-year-old, who spent her life in foster care, recently lost her only friend, and a budding artist in her own right. She carries around a postcard of the painting that the Artist made and is now a highly sought-after masterpiece among rich collectors, and when she finds out it is up for auction, she runs away from her latest foster home, determined to see it. A chance meeting with the Artist in an alley will chance her life forever.

I finished reading the novel and can't stop thinking about it. It is definitely the best book I have read in a long time.

Thank you so much to the author, NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read and review the eARC.

Fredrik Backman delivers once again with this beautiful novel about art, friendship, grief, and the serendipity of life. The characters felt real, their pain and joys familiar. The similarities and changes in their personalities from their fourteen-year-old selves to the present is fascinating to observe and causes you to reflect on how life has changed you, too. It was bittersweet to see these friends find their safety in each other knowing loss was coming, but beautiful to witness how they formed their own little refuge where they were safe from the world's harsh and unforgiving realities, and how this extended into the future with Louisa.

The loss in this book felt so visceral and showed that honest mixture of humour and grief that is so identifiably human. By the end of the novel, I could visualise the central painting, could feel like I was there with the boys too. I found myself wishing my friends were also able to read this book because I wanted to talk about it so badly, and I can see us in these stories.

Thanks so much NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book makes me feel bared open in a way that hurts but also in a good way? For me, this is his most lyrical, poignant work to date—think of the rawness of Beartown with the prose of Anxious People. The focus of art and grief and life is terribly sad and beautifully real.
Louisa is easy to fall in love with. The world hasn’t been kind to her, but she still has so much more to see and do. Being herself was how she found her people. One thing I truly loved was the change in the artist in the way he was described as a child to the jokester he was in the beginning. Your life often feels like it’s over at fourteen, but it’s not. The rest of our crew are near and dear to my heart. Life, in many of its facets, isn’t fair, but when you find your people? That’s what makes life great. They found their people. It spans generations. It continues with us.
Art and creativity is what the world beats on for. It reminds us of the awe and wonder we had as children, gives us goosebumps as we stand parallel with others among the decades, and holds our happiest memories. Art is equivalent of breathing, the way we leave our mark upon the world and yet it is so easily forgotten and made a commodity.
The grief in this book was so realistic that I was on the verge of tears the entire first half. The kind of tears that come from the raw ache of happiness. I felt as if I walked along side our friends, took part in their stories, drank their jokes from the page. It reminded me that life isn’t counted in years, but in memories. And thus, the loss felt incredibly real.
The way I know this book is special is the same way I know my heartbeat. This is for all of us creatives and for those who need the reminder. It’s to show how life continues on and jokes never end despite what you may think. It gives you a family. And so I leave you with this,
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver

Thank you to the author and publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was my second five star of the year, I would give it ten stars if I could. It gave me all of the feels. Anyone who had special friendships as a young teen will get the nostalgic feeling while reading. I ugly cried and I rarely cry while reading. The prose, the characters, the delivery I just could not put it down. Both heartbreaking and hopeful this book gave me chills. Run to get a copy on May 6th, I cannot with to get a physical copy on my shelf. This one I know will be in my top 5 of the year. Thank you so much, Atria Books, NetGalley, and, the author, for the chance to read this gem early.
5 STAR!

thank you to netgalley and publishers for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest review. this does not affect my rating.

I've been finished with this book for a while, and I honestly don't know how to rate this. Because how, exactly, do you rate something that has become part of the fabric of your soul only 5 stars? That seems redundant and doesn't at all convey how strong my feelings are with this book. That's like finding a new favourite song and not getting it inked onto every part of your body - how will I get my point across if rating it 5 stars is the highest I can go?

I read this sparingly between the books I've been reading since the end of January, and even though I paced myself, I still managed to grow suffocatingly attached to these characters and felt the story become one with my soul. And I repeat, how in all that is Holy am I supposed to rate this only 5 stars?

Wow, just wow…another Backman masterpiece. I’ve come to expect nothing less. This book was sweet, funny and heartbreakingly sad at the same time. The story of what true friendship looks like: the good, the bad and the hard. But through it all is a love and loyalty that stands above everything else. I laughed and then cried and did it all over again. Four childhood friends that went through it all together and then 20 years later an event brings memories flooding back by way of a young broken girl who happens to be “one of them” too. Joar, Ali, KimKim and Ted show us what true friendship looks like and Louisa comes along 20 years later and gets the adventure she wasn’t expecting and finds herself people that she so badly needed. This is a book you will want to grab as soon as it comes out. Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy. This will be one of my top 2025 reads and a book I think about for a long time.

I love Fredrick Backman’s books. His characters. His story. The human nature that just punches you in the gut. This book was no different. It’s about love, friendship, grief intermingled with poverty and violence. I was finishing this book while on an airplane sobbing at the love and the friendship. Just fantastic.

Read the book. Sob. Hold on to your friendships even harder. Find the ones that are “one of us”. Thank you to Atria and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy.

Backman has a way of pulling at the heartstrings. His characters are so strong, you can't help but connect with them as you see reflections of your own struggles and failures. But when it all came together its hopeful and charming.

Backman has a way of writing people that really shows you human nature which is why I love his stories so much. Stories encompass the joys and sorrows of life and while the characters have their secrets, you get peeks of them being vulnerable. This story is exactly that....a story of kids growing up who may not have the best lives, but make the best of what they have and find family in each other.

Backman's writing style always draws me right in. I enjoyed this book about boys and the hardships they had to endure in order to survive their childhood. Backman is really wonderful at weaving characters together and making them multi-dimensional. While I thought this story was a little slow at first, it kept my interest with the witty banter between a young girl and a grumpy man.

Absolutely one of the top five favourite books I’ve read to date. Backman finds a way to make a gut wrenching story beautiful, intriguing and a work of art. My Friends hooks you from the first page and balances emotion with the best humorous quips the whole way through.

There truly is not a book Fredrik Backman writes that doesn't tear my heart apart, make me cry multiple times then most often puts it all back together with some good true laughs in between. So no doubt about when I see his name I am all for it. This book is about an endless sea, a profound friendship, and a true love story. It delves into grief, sacrifice, fart jokes, uproarious laughter, spontaneous adventures, learning to trust, and protecting loved ones at all costs. It’s about the serendipity of art. It’s about finding your own pearl in an oyster shell and learning to let go, even when it feels like shards of glass stabbing your heart. These four vagabonds met nearly a decade ago when they were just 15, united by their desire to help the artist attend a painting competition—even though he couldn’t afford supplies like paint, brushes, or canvas. Despite their own struggles and the harsh hands life had dealt them, they were resourceful and unstoppable as long as they had each other. Don't think twice about it and just dive in its so worth it.

A coming of age story that breaks your heart and puts it back together. If a story could teach love, it's this one.