This is the story of a world-famous painting of the ocean—or at least, that’s what most people believe if they’re lucky enough to see The One of the Sea. But Louisa knows better. An orphan on the cusp of adulthood, she has cherished the painting her entire life, looking at it every day in the form of a postcard her mother once sent her. An artist herself, and someone that’s never felt like she had people who loved her, she recognizes what few others do: the true subject isn’t the sea, but the three friends sitting on the pier, almost always overlooked by viewers. When Louisa unexpectedly inherits the priceless masterpiece, she sets out on a journey to uncover the story that led to the painting’s creation, including the lives of the friends who inspired it and their struggles, that fateful summer.

I’ve loved every book Backman has written, and this one was no exception. Within two chapters, I was already in tears—and it took even less time to fall in love with the characters. They’re so richly developed that it felt like I had known them for years. The story is heartbreaking, yet it also fills you with gratitude for the little things we often take for granted. It’s reflective, hopeful, and deeply moving. I couldn’t put it down but never wanted it to end. Like all of Backman’s books, this one made me feel the way art makes his characters feel—and that’s something truly rare.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Atria Books for sharing this masterpiece with me in exchange for my honest thoughts!

5 stars. Easiest five stars ever.

Fredrik Backman’s My Friends, is a heartfelt and honest exploration of friendship, art and love. The novel follows four friends during childhood, primarily focused on the summer that ended in a world famous painting that is nothing short of nostalgic. Twenty something years after the fact, a curious 18-year old aspiring artist, Louisa, is bringing the past and the present together as she hears how her favorite painting was created for the first time.

With a memorable cast of deep rooted friends and a narrative that balances emotional depth with lighthearted moments, My Friends is a beautiful captivating story through dual timelines that expresses how art can heal and one kind deed can be a ripple effect.

Can’t wait for this one to hit the shelves, Fredrik Backman is truly one of my favorites!

When a book you read is by one of your auto-buy authors, you go in with extremely high expectations. Fredrik Backman did not disappoint with “My Friends”!

I think I enjoyed this so much because the two main characters, Louisa and Ted, are just so relatable. They are both dealing with the loss of a loved one, which is what inevitably brings them together on this journey.

The story is told in bits and pieces as Backman flips between the past and the present. I normally hate this, but he just does it SO WELL! With themes of friendship, trauma, and the arts, I highlighted so many passages that I wanted to remember.

I cried more times than I care to admit while I was reading, but in the end you come to realize that through the sadness there is always hope.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My review: Backman has the ability to create people and places and feelings that zip between humor, love, worry, fear, and suspense in every book he writes. Ove and the Beartown series were touching and amazing. My Friends is no exception. As the history of the characters unfolds we are taken between nostalgia and concern constantly. While Ted tells Louisa about the past we think we know how things ended up due to the dual timeline. But how things really happened remains mysterious.
The memories of childhood friendship and family drama and trauma hold fast and Ted can't exactly get all the words out; but his growing care for the orphan Louisa allow him to try. Hurt people understand other hurt people and the bonds of friendship can help them learn and grow and be willing to open up again. Louisa's humor was a welcome reprieve in this story and I laughed out loud at her brashness and her sarcasm. She was just what Ted needed.
Dive off the pier and let yourself get pulled into another Backman story about people who help others and people who need help. Some parts I found myself skipping some description, even though Backman writes so beautifully. I wanted to get to the answers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an advance digital copy in exchange for my review.

I loved this book! It follows four friends during a memorable teenage summer, capturing all the emotions and experiences that come with growing up. It was touching, heartfelt, and an overall great read. This author’s characters are always my favorite — so quirky and full of depth. Highly recommend!

I love Backman's work and was so excited to receive an advance copy from NetGalley. This author masterfully weaves a tenderhearted story about art and friendship. From one moment to the next, this tugs at the heartstrings and provides a chuckle with great balance from start to finish, in this author's classic fashion.

You guys I honestly think that this might be my favorite book of his yet! I loved the Beartown series, but there’s just something about this one.

*broken kids from broken homes
*friends coming together for one another
*survival instincts at its finest
*acceptance and loyalty
*never abandoning and leaving

I could go on and on about this one. So many solid themes, amazing characters, and heartbreak that will stick with you in typical Backman style! Adored it!!!!!

Thank you, NetGalley, for an e-ARC of My Friends by Fredrik Backman.
My Friends is a beautiful story about friendship, art, and the people who save us. Backman has a way with story telling that captures the reader's full attention. After reading the first chapter, I knew this would be one of the best books I read this year! Backman makes you laugh, cry, feel all the feels. He brings the characters to life and keeps you rooting for the underdog. His books may be a bit predictable, but the outcome is the way you want it to end, even if you know it is coming.

Louisa is desperate for one glimpse at a painting that has held so much meaning in her life. She breaks into the building where it's being shown and is mistaken for a vandal. While trying to escape being arrested, she runs into a homeless man who turns out to be the artist himself, at the end of his life. Her brief run-in turns into a train ride with one of the artist's friends who tells her the story of the friends in the painting while they both process their separate griefs over the death of loved ones.

It is a deep, heartfelt, emotional story that is iconic Backman. He is such an amazing storyteller and the reader will get wrapped up in the story and not want to let go when it's over.

First, I’d like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Where to begin…I began reading this book on what would’ve been my son’s 31st birthday 2/25/25. How appropriate that I read this masterpiece on that very magical date…it’s as if my angel Tyler sent it especially for me.

This book, with its exploration of grief, had me on the edge of my seat. If you’ve read “Anxious people” or “Beartown” by Fredrik Backman, you know how he masterfully weaves multiple stories into one big, glorious, interconnected over arching tale. This book is no different.

Told from the main povs of Ted & Louisa, this story had so many twists & turns. One moment, you’re laughing, the next, you’re afraid to turn the page. Ultimately, all of the stories merge into one amazing trip. There were times that I cried, just to be smiling ear to ear the next.

Run, don’t walk to read this beautiful book. Five stars, no notes, just a recommendation to pour yourself a cup of tea and get lost in this book. Become…one of us. I love them, and I trust all of the characters in this book: The artist, Joar, Ted, Ali & Louisa…

Again, thanks to NetGalley Mr. Backman & the publisher for the opportunity to read this book! It was truly an honor & a privilege.

Fredrik Backman writes like no other. It's sort of choppy in a sense, but it just works really well. This story explores friendships and art. I particularly loved the unexpected friendship between Louisa and Ted. The parts of the story delving into details about the teens in the painting brought on a lot of feelings of nostalgia. It's the perfect combination of humor, suspense, and heartwarming moments. This is a book everyone will enjoy and if you are an art lover you will enjoy it that much more.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I am such a fan of Fredrik Backman, and this was another fantastic read. I loved the character development over time and the way that the story was told in little bits and pieces. Telling the story through flashbacks made the reader piece the story together and allowed it to feel like we were experiencing hearing the story, just like Louisa did. The language use was amazing, I found so many passages that I stopped to read over and I was constantly stopping to highlight sections to come back to and share with others. I felt so connected to the characters and the emotion that Backman seems to pull from readers is one of his greatest strengths as an author. There is lots to unpack and would be a great book club choice. Friendship, trauma, abuse, the importance of art, marriage, death and dying, poverty, suicide, importance of art, belonging, are all things to talk about. And the ending, soooooo good!

I think that there could be some great sections to use to look at author craft. I am thinking about parts where Ted is telling Louisa the story of their friendship and then others where Joar tells the story. I think this could be a great way to look at how authors create voice and develop characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the early reader copy.

Frederik Backman's stories continue to be a delight. This one was just what I needed right now. It's the story of a mysterious painting with 3 people in it. The story explores friendships, and how art can create a connection between people, sometimes in surprising ways. It was a good balancer of humor, warmth and just enough suspense for me to be eager to find out what was in the next chapter. Highly recommend this one.

*Disclaimer I received a free galley of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair review.*

Fredrik Backman you are so beloved. My Friends is another incredibly hopeful and yet sad story. Please never stop writing.

ackman strikes again with another compelling, emotional, witty read that will tug at your heartstrings the entire time.

Following a newly 18 year old Louisa and 40 year old Ted as he tells her the story of his youth and the birth of her favorite painting. This book is a testament of childhood love and loss and an in depth exploration of the giant feelings such young people can experience.

This book had me annotating almost every page as the words Backman wrote dig a hole into your heart and bury so deep until you are living and breathing them.

A beautifully poignant story about chosen family and friendship from the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove.

I love Backman's style of writing, and really admire his ability to voice truths about the human condition in the most singular way. But for me, this book fell a little short. I was unable to finish before my ARC access expired through NetGalley (though was grateful to have received a copy!) and I think that had to do with the heaviness of the subject matter being a bit overkill. When every character has a tragic backstory that's so massive (abuse, death, addiction, abandonment, abuse again) it gets overwhelming and borders on melodramatic. Of course there is some levity and quippy jokes, but it's not enough unfortunately to carry the tone to a place where it feels balanced.

Fredrik Backman weaves an emotional and personal tale of dealing with trauma and grief with poignant messages and heartfelt situations that make you think twice about the way you live life. With such a personal style of writing, you can’t help but be swept away by the tide of emotions.

All the stars in the universe wouldn't be enough to explain my love for this book.

But let's try...

Woah, this is a hard review to write because I have so much to say and I don't really know how. First of all, I'm super grateful that I was given an ARC of this book by NetGalley, because otherwise, I would've probably put off reading it (like I did with Beartown). So, this was my first Fredrik Backman book, and OMG, I don't know if that was the best idea ever or the worst because I don't think any other can compare. I'm not going to explain what this story is about because I think it's best to go in blind, like I did, but I'm going to talk about how it made me feel because OMG, HOW MUCH IT MADE ME FEEL.

This is a story about friendship, love, art, grief, and family. If you know me (which I know you don't, but let's pretend you do), those are my absolute favorite subjects to read about. And they are all here, together, and beautifully written. It's such a profound story that it's also, quite ordinary, which makes it even more special. This has become one of my all-time favorite books (and I have only two, counting this one) so...

I'm not so young anymore, so I feel like it's incredibly hard for a book to alter my brain chemistry, but this one did. And not because it inherently taught me something new, but because it put everything I've ever felt and thought into words, through a set of wonderful and fully fleshed-out characters. This story, these people, are a work of art. I loved every single word written in it, and I can't wait to have a physical copy of it to highlight and reread (and hug it, let's be honest). Also, I swear I can see the whole story so vividly that I feel like I just watched a movie, and that's more proof of how well-written it is—that it feels like such a tangible thing.

The only thing I can think to say that I didn't love is that the humor didn't always land for me, but I do think that it was a fundamental part of the story since it's such an intense emotional rollercoaster.

Okay, this review is literally so messy and it probably didn't help anyone, but in case it wasn't clear enough, do yourself a favor and READ IT (wink wink if you already have). I'm never going to forget these characters, this town, and how understood it made me feel. I'm going to come back to it every time I feel lost or sad or like I'm not good enough to create something. Because this book, strangely enough, since it's only words on paper (or actually on a Kindle), gave me so much confidence in myself. And I will also come back every time I feel like grief is an alone kind of sport, because it's really not. I hope everyone can enjoy it as much as I did. Literature is the most beautiful thing in the world.

You know a book has had an impact when, after you've finished reading and crying, you finally go out of your room to get dinner, look at your family, and feel like your heart's going to burst with love. Even if they are not perfect. Specially because they are not perfect, but like everyone, they are on their way...

To end this endless and pointless review, if I had to summarize it, I would say that it's an extremely human story that reminds you that we are all going through it—today or a thousand years ago. We've all felt the same way and looked at the same moon, praying to be enough, praying to learn how to be human.

Fredrik Backman perfectly captures the feeling of being fourteen and life revolving around friendships. The adventures the friends go on in their small town 25 years ago are perfectly woven into Louisa’s present day story and into the painting that is the center of this novel. Themes include acceptance, perseverance, love, and grief. This book reminded me that friendship can endure the greatest obstacles and can show up in the most unexpected ways; friends are chosen family. True friendship is steady, always seeing the best in us, especially when we can’t see it ourselves. This is a book to savor, pondering on the deep lessons shared through Louisa’s journey to discover more about the painting, and, in turn, about herself.