This was the first book that I have read by Fredrik Backman and now it won’t be the last!

This story was extremely well written and told the story of the pain and the beauty it can be to be an artist. It follows Louisa and Ted as Ted shares the story and meaning behind a painting that she has loved for years. This is a very character driven story and Backman did a great job developing these characters!

This story did start off slow for me and it take me a bit of time to get used to Backman’s writing style, but once I did absolutely fell in love with the story. I was shocked by the surprises that were thrown in and didn’t want the story to end!

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria books for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion!

This book was well written and has an engaging story about characters that I simply do not care about. Don’t ask me why. This simply wasn’t my book but I’m sure it’s someone’s.

I knew this book would be emotional. Fredrik Backman is a gifted writer who creates characters that are so well developed you feel like you've known them your entire life. My Friends is no exception to that. By the end of the story, I wanted these people to be my friends. I wanted to sit on the pier with them and go to the art museum with them. I wanted to cry and to laugh with them. Instead I laughed and cried on my own as I read their story. In the book, they talk about art so beautiful that just seeing it makes you too big for your body, that the happiness is so overwhelming you forget to be afraid. That's how I would describe reading this book. The love and sorrow, defeat and hope, is so achingly real and still so beautiful.

This latest book from Fredrik Backman was an excellent read. With "My Friends" he has managed to capture the pain and beauty of being an artists. From hilarious moments to points of despair, I was engrossed with the turn of every page. As he so often does, Backman has captured the human condition perfectly. He is definitely an author that I will read anything from.

My prediction: Book Of The Year!
Need I say more?
I laughed. I cried. I cried some more. It’s the type of book that will stay with me. I contacted old friends and we made lunch plans.
I am not able to find the words for this masterpiece. Amazing and brilliantly written with unconditional love among four teenagers trying to survive. Their bond is so strong and powerful that it has an effect on a girl 25 years later.
Louisa is a day shy from turning 18 and has lived in 8 foster homes. She has carried a post card of a painting with her all these years. Determined to see the painting being displayed in an auction she runs off. Literally runs into a man she assumes is homeless and in the 30ish min of their interaction changed each of their lives.
I preordered a copy to add to my collection!
Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC read in exchange for my review.

Fredrik Backman never disappoints - he is one of my favorite authors ever, and this book just solidifies that for me even more. My Friends tells the story of a young girl named Louisa who meets an artist who changes her life, and also the story of the artist's friend Ted and the summer that changed his life with the artist when they were kids. It's both sad and happy at the same time, and seems to perfectly capture what it feels like to be young. It has the similar and familiar feeling of all of his books, but it is wholly unique and unlike any of his other books. It was emotional and raw and had me saying "oh no" out loud as I anticipated what would happen next, and I loved this book immensely.

Just when you think you couldn't love Backman ANYmore---he hits you with My Friends. This book is a work of art. Much like the artist in the story, Backman's words are such a gift to our world. I savored each and every word and I can't wait to read it again (and again and again). This is a brilliant story of grief, those that are broken, art, and friendship. I laughed and cried and, much like Lousia, towed the line of needing to know what happened next and not wanting it to end. This book reads like the Beartown collection, which were my personal favorites of Backman's many beautiful stories. I will be purchasing this book for myself and cannot wait to gift it to my friends--if only we are all so lucky to have friends such as these.

This ARC was provided by the publisher, Atria Books, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Be sure to get your copy on its publication date, May 6th, at a local book seller near you!

Thank you so much, NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Atria Books, for the ARC.
Fredrik Backman does it again.
If you love stories that are character-driven with a lot of heart, this book is for you. In this story, we follow four teenagers who share profound bonds of friendship. The rest of the plot is interesting, but I'm always moved by how well Backman writes characters. The writing is so genuine and nostalgic in that it brought me back to being a teenager myself; my friends were everything to me. Knowing that as time passes, things change and so do people, was a really hard realization and Backman captures that emotion incredibly well.

Holy moly, Backman has done it again. This book is a love story at its core, but it is not even remotely a romance. When 18 year old Louisa sneaks into an art auction to get a glimpse of her favorite painting and leave her mark she must run away from security and in the process she unknowingly encounters the artist himself. What then unfolds is one of the saddest happy stories I've ever read. This book made me cry, laugh, get goosebumps, and give great sighs. So incredibly good.

Is it too early in the year to pick my favourite read of 2025? I think not, as this will be hard to beat. You’d think that a book of nearly 500 pages would be too mundane or drawn out, but it isn’t so where Backman is concerned. Not only is this 2025’s best book, but it’s also the author’s, in my humble opinion.

Backman has insight into the human condition. Whenever I read anything by this author, it always delivers plenty of emotions. This one is a love letter to friendship. It’s about a friend group who spend the summer together that reverberates years later via a painting. Joar, Ted, Ally and the artist form a close-knit group where they can abandon their terrible homes if even for a little while. This just goes to show how important friendships have an impact on our lives.

The characters are complex, and Backman doesn’t shy away from hard topics. I especially love that he doesn’t write endings where the resolutions are nice and easy and tied up in a neat little bow. His books are raw, realistic, and dramatic. He also writes realistic dialogue with humour, but it can also be very moving at the same time. Backman simply writes about life in all its messy and beautiful glory. His writing is simple, but it touches me every single time. I have high expectations of this author, and Backman didn’t disappoint with this one. A poignant tale of friendship, trauma and healing that deserves All. The. Stars.

📚ARC Review📚

My Friends follows the story of Louisa and Ted. Two individuals who happened to meet by fate. Louisa, an 18 year old foster girl runaway, ends up meeting her favourite painter C. Jat outside of the auction house where his paining is being sold. Louisa has had a post card of this exact painting her entire life and is one of the few people to actually understand what is in the picture.

Through a series of events, Louisa and Ted find themselves on a train travelling together. Louisa soon learns though Ted all about C. Jat’s childhood as well as the identities of the individuals in the painting. Their journey takes many unexpected turns along the way but they end up becoming great friends.

The book alternates between the currently story line of Luisa and Ted and the past as Ted shares his story with Louisa. This is my first Fredrik Backman book, so I found his writing a little hard to get into. My Friends is a modern day coming of age book full of love and loss. This book pulled on my heart strings and had me rooting for everyone.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, this ARC was provided by the publisher, Atria Books, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Well, it’s 1:30am and I’m weepy and I loved it and I hate you Backman. How do you do this to me?!

My first note as I read my way through the first half was:

- Beautifully depressing.

He’s no longer content with big cathartic emotional endings. Oh no. Now he has to make me weepy the whole way through his book! And then chuckle through the tears because that is the Backman way. Humor amid pain.

I’d liken it most along the lines of Ove though it’s obviously very different. Emotionally, it’s almost like Ove in reverse. Though, again, that’s still wildly inaccurate if you get technical, but it’s how it felt.

Alternating between past and present in the traditional storytelling manner but also switches to someone in the present recounting the past… not proper flashbacks, which I thought was brilliant. It’s a slightly different cadence and I loved it.

The grueling history, friendship, and love of the children in the past, brushing up against the adult meets teen in the present, created a brilliant connection between memory and reality. It’s sad, sweet, funny, tense, quietly dramatic, profound, and wondrously memorable. One of the top books of the year and Backman at his absolute best.

4.5⭐️ When picking up a Fredrik Backman book, I know I’m going to be in for an emotional ride, and this book certainly delivered.🥲

I think what I loved most about this book were the characters and the way they’re written. They are flawed, rich, multifaceted, and felt like real people to me. By the time I finished reading, this group of friends felt like my own friends, and I love when I can have that deep of a connection with a book. I could easily feel the bond between them all, and loved the ways in which they were there for each other.

This story was told in a then/now format, and I liked how this enabled small parts of the past timeline to be revealed. It kept me engaged and wondering what exactly was going to happen, and added a bit of suspense. There were a couple surprises I wasn’t expecting, and several moments that had me tearing up. Even at over 400 pages, I could’ve kept reading about these people.

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for providing an eARC of Fredrik Backman's My Friends, a novel that immediately draws you into the intertwined lives of Louisa, a recent foster runaway, and Ted, a man whose memories are tethered to a significant painting. Backman once again demonstrates his storytelling prowess, effortlessly shifting between moments that will make you chuckle and those that will tug at your heartstrings in this multi-generational coming-of-age tale.

Through the lens of art and the strength of chosen connections, My Friends offers a raw and honest portrayal of adolescence. Backman doesn't shy away from depicting the difficult realities faced by a group of young people—illness, depression, alcoholism, neglect, domestic abuse, and homophobia—highlighting their reliance on each other for comfort and understanding. While the story takes its time to unfold, allowing for deep character exploration, the result is a deeply moving and articulate exploration of growing up and finding your place.

Thank you Netgalley & Atria Books for an eARC ♥️♥️♥️

I didn’t just read this book—I lived it.😭💔
Fredrik Backman has done it again, crafting a story so visceral and true that it feels less like fiction and more like a memory you can’t shake. This is a novel about the people who become your home when home is the last place you want to be, and the art that survives long after its creators are gone.
The four teenagers at the heart of this story—Joar with his defiant fists, Ted with his silent grief, Ali with her restless roots, and the artist with his quiet, aching brilliance—will carve themselves into your soul. Their friendship is messy, fierce, and luminous, a makeshift family built on shared wounds and whispered dreams. The scenes on the pier, where they trade stories like lifelines, are so vivid I could smell the saltwater and hear the creaking wood. I laughed with them, raged for them, and when their hearts broke, mine did too. 💔
Then there’s Louisa, decades later, holding the echoes of their lives in her hands. Her quest to unravel the painting’s mystery becomes a meditation on how legacies are made—not in grand gestures, but in the small, sacred moments between people who choose each other. The revelation of how the artwork came to be left me breathless; it’s one of those twists that doesn’t just surprise you, but changes how you see everything that came before.
What wrecks me most is how Backman captures the paradox of youth: how the friendships that save us can’t always save *us*, how joy and sorrow are braided together so tightly you can’t pull them apart. There’s a particular line near the end—*“We were never just kids; we were entire worlds collapsing and being rebuilt in each other’s eyes”*—that I’ve underlined three times and still can’t read without crying. 🥺
This book is a testament to the art we make of our pain, the love that outlives loss, and the strangers who become the story of our lives. It’s not a story you “like.” It’s one that splits you open and stitches you back together, leaving you tender and grateful.
**A shattered mosaic of a novel, and every piece is perfect.**♥️♥️♥️♥️

Thanks to Netgalley for this book.
I usually love Frederik Backman, and actually I still think I do. But this one, for whatever reason, did not work for me. I was very compelled by the first 80 pages and then not much was happening and I couldn’t get into the back and forth storytelling where not much is happening. This is clearly a character driven book which I usually love so not sure what happened here with me! I would recommend for fans of Backman. As one can see from other reviews, this may be a me issue!

It has been a while since I was really in the mood for this type of book, which is why I put off reading it until now. What is so great about this author is you don’t have to be in the right mood for his stories, because he is just that good.
His stories are just so real. They are full of deep insights:
“Nothing weighs more than someone else’s belief in you.”
But also so dang relatable:
“Dear God, how they all laughed, until their spines popped like Bubble Wrap, a fart really is the best chiropractor if you know how to appreciate it.”
Well done, Mr. Backman.

My Friends by Fredrick Backman is a book that will carry you away in a story of friendship, trauma ,art , healing and hope.Louisa is eighteen years old and is in charge of a painting that she has always loved.She goes on a trip to learn about how the painting was created and the four friends that were involved.The timelines of the story are the present and twenty five years previously when the painting was made.This book is not a quick read because there is a lot to process and at times you will just have to take time to catch your breath.You will feel all the emotions while reading this wonderful book from a favorite author.You will love this book!I am looking forward to reading it again!Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for allowing me to read this ARC.

I will never be able to put into words what this book means to me! How is it possible to write the way he does? Im in absolute awe. Backman can make me laugh and cry within a few sentences. The way he describes the tiniest feelings is absolutely mind blowing to me! His storytelling is also so amazing, I will never get over it.

This story is not just about friendship. Its about love and families, about passion and art and trusting people and so so much more. I lived their story with them! I laughed and loved and cried and mourned with them.


Im so so grateful that I got to read an early copy of this! The biggest thanks to netgalley and the publisher! I can not wait to get my hands on the physical book and reread many times in the future!!! Louisa and all the others will forever be engraved into my soul! If i could give this 6 stars I 100% would!

I love everything about this book and probably loved it as much as Backman’s other series Beartown. This book alternates because a story of 4 childhood friends and their lives as adults. Backman’s writing style is one that I enjoy probably more than almost any other author. This story touched my heart and will stay with me for a long time. He addresses themes of friendship, loss, grief, and abuse with such expertise and so masterfully.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.