Fredrik Backman is a literary genius, and this book further proved that. I love the way ideas and phrases connect in all of Backman’s works, but his use of language here was so intentional, so well done, and so indicative of the impact this group of friends had on each other. This is another set of characters I don’t want to leave behind.

A story of friendship and grief told beautifully through unlikely companions Ted, the artist’s friend and Louisa, a young run away the artist paints with just before his death. Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for an advanced copy for an honest review.

Fredrik Backman has a distinctive way of writing which is so engaging and unusual. My Friends is a lovely story of friendship and love and told in a nonlinear fashion of people telling stories to each other. And yet, it is cohesive and meaningful, with plenty of humor ( most of it involving farts, but, hey, farts are funny).

Louisa is an 18 year old orphan who recently lost her best friend. She is also an artist who has been tremendously impacted by the painting of an artist known as C. Jat. She finds a way to see the painting in person and ends up meeting Ted, a friend of the artist. Much of the novel is Ted sharing the story of the painting’s origin which leads to many stories of Ted and his friends. Ted is a character whose anxiety jumps off the pages and is also such a kind and gentle man. Backman excels at character development and storytelling and I hope he continues to gift us with his words for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and Atria Books for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.
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My Friends tells the story of Louisa, an artist and teenager aging out of foster care, who is fascinated with a painting, and the artist of the painting and his friends. The story jumps between timelines. In the present timeline, Louisa mainly spends time with Ted, one of the artist's friends. In the past, Backman tells us about the summer the painting was completed.

Reading Backman is a rollercoaster for me - some of his books are absolute favorites and others end up being not working well for me. I was bummed that My Friends fell a bit more in the latter. The book has Backman's signature writing style. For me, My Friends felt a bit too chock-full of aphorisms and wacky characters dealing with horrible situations.

Book Review My Friends by Fredrick Backman
Publication Date: May 6, 2025

The literary equivalent of Stand By Me, this book journeys through the life of four young friends during one transformative summer. The narrative shifts between the characters present day adult lives and their memories of that unforgettable summer. They share a deep bond forged in the intensity of childhood, a connection with those who truly see you, “your humans”. With beautifully painful prose, quirky characters and dialogue, and rich emotional hills and valleys, Backman crafts a story full of surprises. He gently leads you down a path where pain seems inevitable, only to pivot at the last moment, leaving you both surprised and grateful.

Jory, Ali, Ted and the Artist are vibrant, complex teenagers grappling with painful family dynamics and emotions too large and overwhelming to manage alone. Yet, together, they create a space of safety, security, understanding and love. The writing vividly captures the intensity and importance of their connection, and the loss experienced when they have to leave each other.

This is a story of found family: the immediate recognition of a kindred spirit and the deep sense of home that comes with it. It explores the fierce loyalty of friendship, the promises we keep, and the lengths we’ll go to protect the people we love.

The story delves into the darker sides of growing up - how easily a childhood can be stolen, how quickly self esteem can be crushed, and how being different is punished. But amid the pain, there is hope. Friends can have hope and believe in you, when you have no hope for belief in yourself. They can dream for you, when you are too fragile to consider the possibilities of dreams.

This is another masterpiece from Backman, poignant, touching, funny and full of heart. He has a magical ability to immerse you in the lives of his characters so that you feel deeply connected as if you are a part of their messy, flawed, and beautiful friendship. This book will resonate with longtime fans and is sure to make new ones.

Thanks to Net Galley and Atria Books for the chance to preview this book and provide my honest opinion.

Fredrik Backman is one of my favorite authors (I will never shut up about Beartown), so I went into My Friends with high expectations—and, honestly, some early doubts. The first half felt slow, and I wasn’t sure where it was going.

But Backman does what he always does: he sneaks up on you. By the end, I cared deeply about Louisa, Ted, Joar, Ali, and the artist—characters I didn’t even realize had carved out space in my heart until it was time to let them go.

It’s a quieter book, maybe a little too long, but still full of that signature tenderness, emotional truth, and quietly stunning dialogue that Backman does best. Not my favorite of his—but still a story that moved me.

A must for Backman fans. 💙

A longer review can be found on my Substack at lifewithkat.substack.com.

The greatest treasure in life is a true friend. As humans, we crave connection, but friendships? They are the bonds that shape us, build us, break us, and help us find our way back to ourselves. Especially in our teenage years, friendships feel like lifelines. Some stay with us forever; others turn into memories we bury deep. But the ones that last? They become family. Soulmates. An essential part of who we are.

Teenage friendships are complex. Teenagers themselves are chaos and vulnerability in motion—often misunderstood by the adult world. Fredrik Backman’s My Friends reframed how I see them. It reminded me of what it felt like to be one: confused, emotional, desperate to be seen and loved without judgment. Teenagers don’t need advice or correction—they need presence. A friend who stays. Who sees them without looking away.

My Friends was my first full-length Backman novel, and it found a permanent home in my heart. I’ve read his shorter works before, but this? This was something else. It stirred up a bittersweet nostalgia—of the friends who lit up my darkest days, who laughed and cried beside me. The friendship between Joar, Ali, Teddy, and KimKim is the heartbeat of this story: loud, unwavering, and beautifully raw. They're not just friends; they’re the missing pieces of each other’s souls.

Backman’s writing is like a punch and a balm. His prose feels like coming home. He captures life with such clarity and emotional precision that it’s impossible not to be moved. His characters are painfully real—flawed, kind, scared, brave. They carry their trauma like battle scars, and yet, they remain full of love and hope.

The narrative shifts between the present and a summer 25 years ago, but it flows so seamlessly. The layered perspectives only enrich the story, making the mystery around the past all the more gripping. I feared where the story might go—so many possible tragic turns—but Backman stayed true to each character’s journey. He gave them all the dignity they deserved.

Joar, with his fierce loyalty and protective heart, never failed to make me ache. Ali, gentle and grounding. Teddy, the quiet rock who offered safety. KimKim, unknowingly the reason they kept going. Their love for one another was profound and selfless. They didn’t just exist together—they lived for one another. Every moment, from sweaty beach days to chaotic laughter, felt real. Sacred. Alive.

And then there’s Louisa—loud, passionate, misunderstood. A rebel with a soft heart, painted in bruises and longing. Her bond with Fish, her grief, her discovery of Teddy and art, her loud defiance and vulnerability—she stole my heart. Her journey is one of healing, and she embodies the hope that even the most broken parts of us can still bloom.

This book haunted me in the best way. I read it slowly, savoring every word, every ache, every burst of love. I kept pausing just to breathe, to process, to hold space for these unforgettable characters. This story is a love letter to friendship, to survival, to the art that connects us when words fail. It’s about found families, soul-deep bonds, and the kind of love that doesn’t ask to be noticed—it simply is.

To Joar, Ali, Teddy, KimKim, and Louisa: you are forever etched into my heart.

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.