At about the halfway mark, I realized I wasn't sure what to make of this book. I read it in probably 6-7 sittings, which for me, is usually an indicator that I'm not super into the book. But I don't think that was true with this one? I wasn't able to read more than 10-15% of the book at once (I think due to the more train-of-thought like storyline), but I was always excited to pick the book up again. Backman just has such a lovely way of bringing characters to life, but I do think this book was more chaotic than his previous ones. I also was a bit disappointing in the ending--so much time was spent telling these characters' stories and there were some flash-forward-y scenes, but it just felt a bit quick and easy. All in all, I will read anything Fredrik Backman writes, but this one probably isn't a new favorite of mine.

Wow. Wow. Wow! Fredrik Backman does it again, with potentially his best book yet. My Friends follows Louisa and Ted - a man grieving the death of his greatest love, and the girl entrusted to the famous artist’s painting. Louisa is freshly 18 and has had a hard life in foster care, and is also grieving the loss of her best friend. Ted tells her the story of the artist, and his three best friends Joar, Ted, and Ali. The book is written in Fredrik Backman’s classic style, and is full of heartbreak that brought tears and some moments that made me laugh out loud. No author has the ability to make the reader feel and think quite like him. I loved this book and wish I could read it for the first time again. I’ve already pre-ordered a finished physical copy for my shelf.

I love the way Fredrik Backman tells a story and will read anything he writes. This was simultaneously funny and heartbreaking with themes of found family and how art can be healing. It did feel a little too long, but overall I really enjoyed this.

This is a unique, wonderful story of friendship, love, survival,heartbreak and OH so much more!
The story of three friends is disclosed to a young woman, Louisa; in present day after she meets a famous artist and deeply admires his painting. She, herself loves to paint, and therefore feels a desire to know more about the work,this artist, and the young people on the canvas.

The journey is intense at times and definitely warrants a tissue box.
It's so well told that I could not help but feel as if I was a friend of these kids so many years in the past.

Fred Backman has written another winner for sure! I would love to see it in a theater!
Thank you to @NetGalley and to @Atria for this amazing ARC and allowing me to provide my own review after reading.

What a beautiful book! As a big fan of Fredrik Backman, I was delighted to get the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. I found its style quite different from his previous books, but it was equally as powerful. The author did an amazing job showing the best and worst of humanity with his characters. I loved both the contemporary story as well as the revelation of the impactful summer when many of the characters were 14. I also appreciated the role art, community, family and friends played throughout the book. I think I will remember and think about these characters for a long time. I think this book would be a great choice for book discussion groups. I highly recommend it to all readers.

This was heart shattering, beautiful, and humorous! Backman’s prose is amazing. He had me laughing and crying simultaneously. I’m pretty sure this was the most I’ve ever cried while reading (basically every time I continued reading it). His descriptions of grief, friendship, and art were astounding. It’s difficult to read any of his works without highlighting every line. Every piece of his books feels so significant and has impacted me. His characters also feel so real. Truly outstanding!

Thank you NetGalley and Atria books for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest review.

I really, really enjoyed this book and plan to check out his others. The writing style is a bit different, but once you get the hang of it, it is a very quick read. A story about childhood friends and trauma, and how that carries through to adulthood. I definitely recommend you check this book out!!

Thank you to Net Galley and Atria books for giving me this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I LOVE Fredrik Backman’s books and this one did not disappoint. Such an amazing story that I could not put it down. I think I read every chance I got for like 3 days.

Another incredibly poignant, emotionally devastating read from Backman. His usual style of quirky characters, off beat humor, and relentlessly flawed and messy humans is back in a love letter to the enduring power of not just childhood friendships, but that specific, small window in our lives where life feels both limitless and contained, where days are never ending yet also fleeting. He perfectly captures and manages to bottle the feeling you have at 14 where you feel invincible yet also relentlessly beaten down by the world around you. Where you don’t know if you’re the chaos or the chaos is in the world around you.

Told in pieces, as we follow Louisa in present day, we are treated to pieces of the past that defined the lives of so many and continue to create ripples around them.

The writing is elegant and raw, it visceral and shows a deft understanding of this unique time in our youth while also brutality highlighting all the ways the world can crush a child’s dreams, can force them to grow up, can try to stamp out the wings and magic that pour out of them.

All that said, I can’t say this is a favorite for me. Why? Well because it ran a smidge too long and when Louisa finally gets to the end of the story, I felt like we took just one too many side quests to get there. I also felt like it was a bit difficult to find my footing in the story as there was quite a bit of it that was repeated but somehow kept shifting and changing, including the addition of a major character yet later on. It felt like by the time we got to a later retelling, everything we had been told before needed to be re-contextualized and retold, instead of feeling layered. In many ways while this had a very clear message and purpose, I wished it almost didn’t. I’m used to Backman stories having multiple angles that come together, multiple characters and their stories that collide and coalesce, but instead, with My Friends, it felt like the characters were all a singular entity with the same message. I just missed having more POVs I think, that would have added more depth and angles to that special summer. While we get some towards the end, it felt a bit too late.

Overall it’s a compelling read and it is committed to its message on art and friendship, but I did feel a little bit of something missing. A 3.5 I’m rounding up to 4.

A beautiful, beautiful story on life, friendship, and some on art as well. Fredrik has such a way of storytelling. He pours himself into his characters and stories anyone who reads his books will tell you that.

This is a very slow burn, but a phenomenal story. Be patient with the story and just enjoy the ride.

Thank you Atria Books and Netgalley for the e arc. Be on the lookout for this book PUB Date 05/20/25

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to preview My Friends, by Fredrik Backman. This is a thought provoking book. It doesn't move quickly, but it doesn't need to. The characters are well planned out and described in detail. It's an emotional roller coaster. There is a friend group of four kids. Their lives are told to you in small snippets. You are constantly wondering how each person can get through their days with all they are contending with. The reader is always hoping for a happy ending for each of them. I recommend this book. If you have read prior Backman books, this one is typical of his writing style.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC for my honest review of this book.

Like all of F.Backman books you get a quirky fun adventure with a life lesson on how to see things in life a little differently. This book was much the same.

I don't want to give too much away other than this...you won't regret reading this book.

It is about grief and death. Be prepared for this subject matter. It is also about how generations see the younger generation.

This book also has a lot about art and friendship.


I hope that anyone who picks this book up has a box of tissues with them.

I don't know what I did to deserve an eARC of this book, but I am thanking my lucky stars that I was able to start 2025 with this gem of a novel. I honestly am sad that I read it so early in 2025, as I don't know how any other book I read this year will top it!

I love every single one of Fredrik Backman's works, especially Beartown, so it shouldn't have surprised me that this was easily a five star read. Fredrik Backman delivered with My Friends. Straddling the present and twenty-five years earlier, it will remind you of the intensity of childhood friendships and make you reminisce on those days of summer that seemed to stretch forever but ended too quickly.

To continue with the Beartown comparison, I genuinely don't think I could love anyone more than Benji Ovich. My heart still hurts when I think about him, and while, he is still number one in my heart, Louisa, Fish, Ted, Joav, Ali and the artist are now also permanently etched on my heart. Each are flawed but depicted with such raw vulnerability that you cannot help but root for them.

Louisa is on the cusp of turning 18 and finally leaving the foster care system. In a nearby church, there is an art auction taking place, and her favorite painting, The One By The Sea, is up for sale. She cannot buy it, but she just needs to be near it and admire it in person. So, she hatches a plan with her best friend Fish to break into the auction and see it. Like all things Louisa does, her plan goes awry and is chased out of the auction, putting her on a path that will irrevocably change her life.

Mere days after the auction, The One By the Sea is gifted to her. She is astonished and a little perplexed, so she asks to hear the story of the painting that captured her heart and helped her get through some challenging days in foster care. In order to hear it in its entirety, she needs to join Ted on a train trip to the pier where it all began 25 years ago.

There were four friends - the artist, Joav, Ali and Ted. Each day, they met at the pier to dive in the sea, share cookies and above all, laugh. Their home lives were challenging, and their friendship was a balm to the soul. Joav, Ali and Ted knew that the artist was destined for greatness, but he would never leave without a little push in the right direction. When Joav finds an art competition, the group decides that the artist will enter, and he will win.

Read this book if you love:
🎨 Found family
🌊 Train trips
🎨 Dual timelines
🌊 Complex characters

As beautiful as Backman's work is, I would be remiss not to mention that there are several dark content matters discussed, including: abandonment, alcoholism, bullying, death of a parent, domestic abuse, homophobia, rape and violence. He covers each of these topics with care, but readers should know these topics are described, some in great detail, prior to reading.

I will post a review of this book closer to release day on my bookstagram, @thecozybookgal

Overall rating: 5/5 Stars

"We hardly ever start at the beginning."

Most people don't look, really look, into art. So hardly anyone ever notices the three figures sitting on the pier of one of the most famous paintings in the world: The One of the Sea. But Louisa does.

To her, it means something about the world, about her best friend Fish, about who she is. But it will never mean more to her than it does when she hears the real story behind it and the friends who helped the artist C. Jat to create it.

Moving between the past and the present, we watch both as the painting comes to be and as it is unexpectedly placed into Louisa's care. It is a journey on both ends, and neither of them start at the beginning.

This book is the essence of friendship contained within some words on a page. It is the meaning of life, sentiment, ineffability. There is no summarizing a Fredrik Backman book if you've never read one.

"And Ted has to forgive them, because in grief we are reminded that we're human beings. In life we might be enemies, but when faced with death, we see the truth: we are one species, all we have is each other, and where you go, I shall follow."

The way he writes opens me up to all of human emotion. I feel everything as I read his work; from despair, to hope, to longing, to laughter at the unexpectedly funny parts to warmth.

"He used to say that art is coincidence.
A beautiful painting is the sum total of a person, what has happened to them, blessings and curses alike.
Coincidences."

This book is not chronologically written in the most beautiful, human, raw, and real way possible. What is magical about this book is that it's about the worst things that could happen to you, but really, it's about kindness.

"Okay. You can tell me the rest of it now."
"The rest of what?"
"The rest of the whole long story!
About everything! About the competition and the painting and... everything. But it mustn't only be unhappy! It must also be a bit ... you know ... ordinary too."

This book is written in memories. A professor once told me that time is relative and we remember things being longer that had more of an impact on us. I was reminded of this constantly while reading because the smallest passages had the most profound effect on the characters and on me as I absorbed their feelings and lessons.

Thank you for another beautiful and imperfect ride through the best and worst of us, Fredrick Backman.

"It's cool that we happened at all."

Thank you to NetGalley for proving this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so, so incredibly much for the advanced copy of My Friends. It was a privilege to receive and one that I was quick to prioritize, since Backman has written some of my top books to recommend. Beartown and Anxious People were both 5 star reads for me.

That being said, I was a bit disappointed with My Friends. It was a charming story and absolutely had some highlight-worthy lines, but it didn’t resonate as deeply as Backman’s other work. The story begins in present day to introduce a runaway orphan named Louisa. Just shy of 18, Louisa gets caught in an event that catapults her into a found family adventure. She meets two adult versions of the other main character friend group. What follows is an alternating timeline: we are offered a journey all its own while Ted recounts the summer he and his closest friends were 14. The main themes are art and its influence on mental health, found family and childhood friendship, and the different directions and possibilities detrimental to reaching adulthood.

I appreciated the nostalgia, Backman’s personable and humorous writing style, and the heartwarming stories within the story. Each character is well represented and it’s easy to fall in love with all of them, respectively and more and more as things unfold.

Some of the novel felt like it was trying too hard to be witty and likable, though. I also feel like a handful of crude references were overused. It’s always great to see themes and references pop back up or come full circle… but My Friends didn’t need that or land the same way Backman’s previous work has accomplished.

Altogether, this novel was well done if not overdone. Backman offers another opportunity to consider heavy questions with a light perspective. I’d recommend this to his usual audience but would not recommend this as anyone’s first time experiencing his work.

I will post this on my Goodreads with a 3.75 rating.

If Backman writes it, I read it. I have been waiting for a new book of his to be released and this one didn't disappoint (but then again, he never disappoints me). 
This story follows Louisa, who has had a rough life but has learned to stay hopeful with the help of her friend Fish and a postcard that depicts a famous painting of a sea (but if you look real close, you can see 3 friends on a pier). Although this painting was done twenty five years prior, these friends will have a big impact on Louisa in ways she never thought possible.
Backman's writing is truly unlike anyone else I've ever read. He serves as this omnipotent narrator who gives you insight into each character in such a flawless way that you can't help but feel so deeply about everything that happens in his books. This story is about friendship and art, but also what it means to simply be human.
Deeply grateful to NetGalley and Atria Books for sharing an ARC with me! Of course, I also preordered a physical copy of the book to add to my collection of Fredrik Backman novels (yes, they're that good!)

I have no words to express how much I loved this book! I was instantly hooked. I adore Backman's writing style. It made me laugh, cry, and experience such a wide array of emotions. It was heartfelt and poignant. It strongly focuses on themes of friendship, grief, and love. I really enjoyed the dual timelines and the depth it added to the plot. I absolutely loved all the characters, and the character development was excellent. This book deserves all the stars.

Fredrik Backman is my favorite author, and this is definitely one of my favorite books of his. The entire book kept me engaged, his storytelling is truly so endearing and his characters fly off the page. I am so thankful to NetGalley and Atria for allowing me to read this early, I wouldn’t be surprised if this lands in my top reads by the end of 2025. It was fantastic and a joy to read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for an ARC of this book.

It was a joy to start 2025 with Fredrik Backman's My Friends. My Friends is a stunning portrait of a close-knit group of friends. It's a book about four friends growing up in a rough community who all rally around "the artist" friend as he becomes a famous painter. It's about growing up, struggling through adversity, love among friends, and art, and has moments of happiness, laughter, sadness, everything. It is an emotional novel, and Backman's best. I look forward to recommending this book to students, colleagues, and friends.

Thanks for NetGalley gifting me this ARC. I am new to this author, but have obviously heard of him. I can say his writing is phenomenal, his story emotional, and my want to read more books, absolute. Do not go in if you do not want to feel things....