This book was perfect and such a masterpiece that I don’t even know where to begin on putting how much I loved it into words, but I’m going to try my best.

This is a classic Fredrik Backman where the heartbreaking moments are intertwined with the humorous moments—and he writes both so well. I was crying over something that happened on one page and then laughing on the next page.

These characters felt SO real and that is something Backman is so good at doing. You feel like you’re with these characters rather than reading a book about them. I loved these characters so much and I loved reading about their journeys and how they all came together. This book is the epitome of found family.

“My Friends” isn’t just about a painting—it’s about love, friendship, grief, strength, family, life, and so much more. Nothing I say can adequately capture my feelings for this book or do this book justice. It is literally a masterpiece.

I adore Fredrik Backman. His characters are exceptional - quirky, broken, lovable. This one moved at a bit of a slower pace for me, but I adored every second of his prose.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this novel. My review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.

“When you’re fourteen years old, friendship and infatuation are the same feeling, light from the same star, so perhaps there ought to be a better word for it. But how do I explain that I’m freezing to death if I’m not seen by you?”

this is a story about friendship and art, but it is so much deeper than that. the characters are viscerally raw, it’s clumsy and emotional, I could physically feel it tugging on my heart strings as I was reading. A story within a story, four friends, and a girl twenty five years later that has to know them.

“Because in an ugly place, he was born with so much beauty inside him that it was like an act of rebellion. In a world full of sledgehammers, his art was a declaration of war.”

I wanted this book to last forever, I could spend lifetimes reading backmans prose. I will never be able to understand how he does it. an absolute masterful story teller, the way he can weave the most gut wrenching scenarios with humor that makes you laugh out loud and fill you with general feelings of human-ness, like your heart is being physically squeezed in your chest. he will break your heart and return it safely, but forever changed by the end :’)

“Art is coincidence, love is chaos,”

I am always a bit in awe after finishing a fredrik backman book but this one…….truly stunned me. an instant favorite, all the stars I could possibly give. I expect a lot of people to really really love this, I know I did 🤍

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

This was quite the book that I found to be an interesting and a satisfying read. This is only the second book by this author that I have read and while I liked them both I’m not sure that these books are quite for me. I did enjoy the writing style and I liked and connected with many of the characters, but the story itself just never really engaged me.

There are many characters and two timelines in this story. I liked Louise, the young adult who we meet at the start of the story. You get right from the start that she has endured quite a lot in her young life, but she has survived mostly because of a close friendship and because of art. Louise often added some much needed comedic relief in her attitudes and comments, as only a seventeen year old can do. Ted is the older gentleman who befriends Louise and tells the tale of the four friends and the artist behind the painting that means so much to her. Ted is a little bit harder to relate to, but he also has had a rough childhood and is able to connect to Louise on a different level than most adults could.

There are two parts to this story, the present where Louise and Ted meet and go on a journey together, and then the past where the story of the four friends is being told and the summer when the painting was created. I found the friend’s story to be a more interesting and compelling one than the present day story. Although the friends encounter much hardship, brutality and experience true grief that summer, there is a lot of joy and happiness too in their friendship and love for each other.

I did struggle a little bit with the writing style at the start of the story, it was almost a kind of stream of consciousness, but I eventually found myself appreciating it by the end of the book. This author really has a nice way of writing and describing the world he has created. I almost believed that the artwork the story centers around was a real painting, and I was hoping that someday I would get to see it as well. I was also expecting the end to the friend’s story to be as tragic and emotional as the rest of it had been, but it ended up being a happy one.

If you are a fan of this author’s work than I am positive that you will find this one just as wonderful. I think that non fans will enjoy it too, especially if you like stories of love, found family and the endurance of childhood friendships.

“Fragile hearts break in palaces and dark alleys alike.”

This book. Books like these are the reason that I’ve been a constant reader since primary school. When I turned 5, I was allowed to walk across the street from my grandparents house to the library alone for the very first time. It was there that I discovered my love of reading and how wonderful it felt to read something that touched my heart and made me think.

“Grief is a luxury for those living an easier life.”

‘My Friends’, the latest from Fredrik Backman is so utterly beautiful. I want every, single one of you to read it. I want to shout its brilliance from the rooftops. I want you all to experience it for yourselves.

“Who can paint like that? Who can punch the lungs of someone who merely sees three kids hanging on a wall? Who can make you smell the salt water and weep over someone else’s childhood?”

This book is about art and friendship. It’s about childhood and what comes after. But most of all, it’s about love. Love in all of it’s glorious forms.

“If she ever got to the sea, maybe she wouldn’t be scared of swimming. She imagined it would be like in fairy tales, and that in some magical way everything would have a happy ending.

It won’t.

But this is how her adventure begins.”

Wow! Of all of Fredrik Backman’s books I’ve read, this one is by far my favorite! This was an exquisite look at friendship and how necessary it is for surviving life, but especially those difficult teenage years. This book proves that our childhood friendships really can shape the person we grow to be and the very best ones last a lifetime and beyond. Thank you for the ARC- I will be recommending this to my students, colleagues and friends.

My first time reading a book by Mr. Backman and it won’t be my last. This book had me hooked throughout. Never slowed down or let go of my heart. I can’t recommend this enough.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC. I don't know how I feel about this book. I've heard that Backman has written a few books that carry a weight of different emotions in them. Yet, I had only the pleasure of reading Otto, Marie-Ann and Anxious People so far.
I felt a sad hopelessness for the majority of the book. The author continuously lets you know unfortunate events are going to take place in the story. You would think I would feel prepared, but no. I only wanted to delay what I knew would come.
There is a time in life when you have great friends making the fondest memories. I don't which is worse.
Having those memories with the caveat of knowing sadness is around the corner, or never getting to experience the friendships that give the feeling of everlasting warmth when you look back throughout your life.

I love Fredrick Backman’s writing style. He has a way of sucking you into the lives of his characters and wanting to know all about them. He delivers info a little at a time and keeps you guessing to fill in the missing pieces. I enjoyed reading about the lives of these characters and kept me wanting yo know more throughout the story

Wow. This book was such an incredible experience for me. It felt like Backman wrote this story for me. It was perfect and every word was exactly what I needed to hear. I cried, laughed, and felt seen from beginning to end.

My Friends is a deeply moving, emotional story about grief, art and what it means to us, adventures, childhood and what we carry from it into our adult lives, and above all friendships. My Friends is about four childhood friends and their experiences told as a story to Louisa, a teen on the brink of adulthood who has gone through her fair share of hardships and grief, but found hope and solace in a painting that connects her to the four.

Every character in this book felt like a real person, even the ones who were incredibly cruel. Fredrik Backman is a master at capturing the essence of being human, in a way that no other author can. As a highly emotional human who often feels like I don’t quite understand how to be one, I never feel as seen as I do within the pages of his books. This book makes you nostalgic for childhood without making it seem idyllic. It fully captures what it feels like to be 14. It makes you thankful for the friendships you are so lucky to have. It makes you realize that through all the hardships, there is hope in the end. There aren’t enough words to capture how much this book meant to me, or enough to thank Fredrik Backman for writing stories that can make a person feel that way.

A huge thank you to Atria Books and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! Receiving an ARC of a book by my favorite author is my absolute peak as a reader.

May we all bow down to the king of storytelling. Fredrik Backman is a mastermind and this book was so exception. His books always take me so long to get through and this was no exception - his prose is so unique that I have to take my time to not miss anything, and there is SO MUCH you could miss if you read his books too quickly. I loved every second of the two weeks it took me to read this book.

Backman has a way of making you think you know what's going on and being so sure about it, because why would you doubt anything when it's so clear? And then BAM, nothing is as it seems. There are so many small details in the book that he weaves throughout that if you blink you'll miss it (the baby bird?!) and it always just makes me go "wow, this man is a literal genius." His characters are so complex and have so much depth. I laughed, I cried, I screamed, I had every reaction. RIP Fish and The Artist. This book is an instant favorite of mine.

Wow. I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to make it with this one. The first 1/4 of the book just felt so incredibly sad and heavy. But, I kept reading, because I've read enough Backman to know to keep going. He has such a gift of bringing broken people together and creating something beautiful. So, ultimately, I really appreciated what he did with this story. The art theme was so well done. I will say it needs a few trigger warnings for child abuse, domestic abuse, and substance abuse, so those who need them, take note.

A million stars for this story. I laughed out loud, and then I was tearing up, I don’t know if I will ever recover from this. This story follows Louisa, a young woman who had never had a home, and Ted, an adult male who felt his friends were his home. This story is beautiful, as all Backman stories are, and I became fully immersed. Friendships can really shape an individual’s life, and Backman showed readers how these friendships can stand the test of trauma and time. I don’t want to spoil it, so I am being vague, but I don’t know that I will ever read a more beautiful story than this one.

Fredrik Backman is one of those must-read authors for me. I was so excited to get an ARC of this book (thank you to the publisher and @netgalley). I didn't love this book as much as I've loved some of his past novels. The Beartown trilogy and A Man Called Ove were so amazing that I think it will be hard to ever produce something that great again.

That said, this is a good book. It's an interesting story and I liked the characters for the most part. The story centers on Ted and Louisa who come together after one of Ted's best friends, a world famous artist, dies. Their meet cute is kind of weird and Louisa can be very grating, simultaneously acting like a 5 year old and a 25 year old at the same time.

My main dislike with the book is all the trauma (death and domestic abuse). It was a lot to handle and I'm at a point in my life where it really got to me. It may not affect other readers in the same way. I also felt like I couldn't relate to the characters that much. I've never had friends like Ted did and I certainly can't recall a summer of my life the way he does. It's obviously not necessary to have the same life experiences as characters to enjoy them, but something about these two just wasn't relatable at all.

The book does have the unique blend of Backman's humor and sentimentality, which I really enjoyed. Overall, I would recommend this book and I'll eagerly await Backman's next work!

Another winner from Backman, who is so good at eliciting big feelings with his writing. This is a story about deep friendship that transcends time and circumstance, about art and its power to uplift and transform. Every character is captivating, and the whole novel has a sort of fairy tale vibe to it. I was completely sucked in from the first page. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for a digital review copy.

My Friends by Frederick Backman
Rating: 5 stars
Pub date: 5/6

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Atria for my advanced copy!

Fredrik Backman is one of my favorite authors and has once again proven himself to be a master storyteller. “My Friends” follows Louisa, an 18-year-old artist, who inherits a mysterious painting linked to a summer twenty-five years ago, and four teenagers who found solace in each other during a difficult time in their lives.

The story alternates between the past, where we get to know Joar, Ted, Ali, and the “artist,” and the present, where Louisa embarks on a road trip with Ted to uncover the story behind the painting. Both timelines are equally gripping, and I found myself fully invested in each of them.

The teens’ story is heartbreaking yet full of hope. Their friendship is raw, real, and messy at times, but full of heart, and their line to each other, “I love you and I trust you,” is simple yet devastating —a mantra that is the soul of the novel.

I loved Louisa and Ted together! In their present-day storyline, they have a hilarious and heartfelt dynamic. Their back-and-forth is sharp, funny, and unexpectedly emotional. It’s one of those relationships that feels completely genuine.

No one writes stories the way Backman does. He somehow balances deep emotional moments with humor that doesn’t feel out of place, and he seems to understand the human condition in a way that other writers don't.

If you loved Beartown, or are into stories about found family, lifelong friendships, and the kind of art that changes lives, this one’s for you. It’s beautiful, hopeful, and quietly powerful.

4.25 stars. Oh Mr Backman - How do you write so beautifully every single time?

Backman finds a way to use words in such a way that helps everyone relate to something even when they have not experienced it. I just eat it up. The quotes are always SO GOOD. He can somehow take the smallest experience and describe how it can affect life in such a brilliant way. I loved the Beartown series for this reason - and this book was no different. The first half was pretty slow for me but the second half more than made up for it. It was a little bit A Man Called Ove with some grumpy characters -- meets Stand by Me --meets Beartown. Maybe it was just a me thing - b/c while it sounds crazy, I saw similarities. Overall, I just love Fredrik Backman. It's also SO refreshing when a man is a girls guy. I mean, he is all for women all of the time. And he can fully admit and support that one of the scariest things to a woman, can be a man. It's something that most men cannot understand (or maybe they just don't want to admit it). He writes trauma, grief, and healing so incredibly well. Yet another hit for me.

4.5* rounded up... From the first time I read A Man Called Ove I was captivated by Backman's writing style and finesse with words. His multi-faceted stories are easy to get lost in. My Friends is no exception. I appreciate the details and depth of his characters. These unlikely friendships from the past intertwined with new relationships in more recent times do not hesitate to tug on the heartstrings. Imperfect and complicated lives bring these kids together as they navigate life and their developing personalities. They truly will define "friend" in many ways. The journey the reader will go on to the end of the story will be one of reflection and plenty of emotions.
Don't miss this one!
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this ARC. All opinions are mine.

Fredrik Backman’s 𝘔𝘺 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 is a beautifully written novel that reflects on the nature of art and the importance of found family. As he depicts a group of young teenagers as they deal with illness, depression, alcoholism, neglect, domestic abuse, and homophobia in their households and turn to each other for distraction and support, the author offers clever and profound observations about life. Though the narrative is a bit slow and meandering at times, overall the book is an eloquent and moving coming-of-age story. Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I started this book, I was absolutely paranoid that this was Fredrik Backman's way of telling us he's dying.

He probably isn't, but based on some recent Facebook posts about his book tour, he may have gotten close enough to scare him. He says he wrote this book like it would be his last because he thought it would be.

As a theoretical last book, it's a good one. It took a second for me to relate to Louisa, but that's because I'm more of a Ted. The quotes about life, death, and grief are as heart-wrenching as all his other books. The man really knows how to make you cry. The frame story is cool; both stories had such compelling characters that I was never bored or anxiously waiting to get back to the other one. Like Louisa, I was not quite ready to hear the end, because I knew it wouldn't be a perfectly happy ending. His endings never are.

I'm grateful that I got to read this one pre-publication, although I would've bought it, anyway.

I received a free Advanced Reader's Copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.