A world-famous painting connects four teenage friends with an aspiring artist 25 years later. The artist, 18-year-old Louisa, embarks on a cross-country journey to learn about the teenagers in the painting and how the painting came to be.

I can see why people liked this book, but I could not connect with the characters and did not have the urge to pick up the book most nights. While it was my first novel from Fredrik Backman — I’d read a short story of his and enjoyed it — it will not be my last. I know Backman is a talented writer; this one just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Atria Books for an advanced reader copy of #MyFriends.

My Friends by Fredrick Backman is a beautiful book about relationships and human nature. Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down, I just had to know what happened within the multiple groups of friends. The characters are written in such a beautiful way that I immediately was invested in the story and concerned for their wellbeing. I've read every book that Backman has written and this has to be one of my favorites!

what an absolutely beautiful and sad story. Fredrick Backman has such a unique way of writing that usually take me a few chapters to get used to but once I do I am sucked in. This story, following Louisa, on the journey of her life and discovering the story behind her favorite painting was touching. Ted was the best grumpy old man you could ask for. Joar is so sassy and fully himself. Ali is bold and fearless (even when she’s actually terrified). And kimkim, the one who started it all, is so pure. I don’t even know how to describe this story and the journey it takes you on. I loved it. I laughed and I cried. This is truly one of a kind and I absolutely loved it.

Everything you expect from a novel by Fredrik Backman. It is beautiful, funny, deep and compelling. Flawed, but humane characters' friendship is the main theme. I loved the discussion of art!

Wow! Backman does it again! What a wonderful, funny, deep and heartfelt story of friendship. I laughed, cried and will genuinely remember this book for a long time. I will be recommending this to my friends! Thank you so much for the ARC of this book!

“The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else’s belief in them.”
There is just something about a Bachman novel. I don't know if its the way the story is told, or the rich characters, or just the uniqueness; but each one is so special. 
My friends is about a friendship frozen in time in the most famous painting in the world. We go back and forth between the present time of the painting being displayed, and the story of the friends during that time. We slowly meet these friends and how the summer the painting was created, they became family. 
Bachman takes the messiness and hard parts of life and turns into beauty and hope. It's a testament to that fact that art will always reach the person who needs it most.

A lot of stories, some of them long, inside a story which is long.

Our artist is dying. He meets Louisa who is one of them. On the surface this is the journey of Ted and Louisa returning to the hometown of the artist, Ted and their friends. As we follow the journey, we read sentences outloud to our spouses because they are hilarious. Also on the journey, we have to put the book down so we don't break into sobs because the story and the writing are so beautiful that it is just hard to keep going.

One of the best books that I have ever read.

This is a beautifully written story on loss and enduring friendship.
Backman has a unique way of writing these characters their stories are real ,raw and flawed
We follow their journeys which are full of emotional, heart wrenching while heartwarming. You’ll find yourself crying at one time and laughing at another.
Give this book a read it’s worth it .
Thanks netgalley

MY FRIENDS - FREDRICK BACKMAN
5⭐

18 yr old orphan girl Louissa breaks into an art auction to catch a glimpse of a world famous painting only to come later in possession of the same painting.
Trd a 39yr old man is grieving the loss of his best friend ( the artist of the painting) and together both Louissa and Ted travel to his hometown and tells the story that led to the creation of the world famous painting.
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I hv no words to describe what all I hv felt while reading this book.
There isn't a single emotion that I haven't felt and true to Backman's style and his narration it will break your heart before joining it piece by piece.
I,just like Louisa in the book wanted to meet all the 4 friends, the way they rallied around each other and got out the best from each of them was so endearing.
There are so many quoted that I have highlighted and I never annotate in books but this just needed it and now I want to go back read it again and savour the whole book one more time!

Frederik Backman has a lot of talent as a writer. Everything I have read by him is compelling, and features not perfect, but perfectly human characters. The story of childhood friends who need and who complete each other. I was not as compelled by the story as many others who have read it and raved about it, but like his other books, Backman really takes readers into the heart and soul of life.

When he was a little boy, someone I knew long ago was painted into a mural that was found on the side of a building downtown of where I live now. He told me he remembered the day the artist visited them at school, had the students form a line and photographed them running through a hay field, then painted the mural. Later the artist incorporated other scenes of importance to the local area, and the art hung for years until the building burned down one fateful day. Sadly, although the mural was later recreated, the line of children running through the field was not included in the new work of art. I often drove by the mural in it's glory days, and wondered about those children and where their lives led them; how they were immortalized on the side of a downtown brick building. The story of My Friends by Backman reminds me of that - the back and forward story of people who became the subject of a piece of art, Each of us has a tiny story to tell, and we are all linked together; moments of significance or insignificance; it doesn't matter, really, What matters is how all of our lives are connected and how what we think, feel, or do truly does matter in the long run.

My Friends is now my favorite book by Fredrik Backman and it will definitely be one of my favorites of the year! Backman is excellent at writing about the human experience and creating wonderful characters. This book will make you laugh and cry. Magnificent storytelling!

Synopsis:
Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of a wide expanse of sea. But Louisa, soon to be eighteen years old and an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise. She is determined to find out the story behind these three enigmatic figures.

More than two decades before, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up every morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that, after a chance encounter in an alleyway, will unexpectedly be placed into Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to discover how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more anxious she becomes about what she'll find. Louisa's complicated life is proof that happy endings are sometimes possible, but they don't always take the form we expect them to.

Fredrik Backman's signature charm, humor, and attention to the poignant details of everyday life are on full display in this funny, moving novel. His most heartfelt and personal tale yet, My Friends is a stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of art and friendship.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced digital copy of the book for my opinion.

This book was a riveting and well told story of four friends. I was instantly captured by the story and hung on until the end, desperate for the next bit of the story. Per usual, the author has a way of telling a story that is unique and gripping.

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Atria, and Fredrik Backman for a DRC of this book in exchange for an honest review!**

"It's art that helps me cope. Because art is a fragile magic, just like love, and that's humanity's only defense against death. That we create and paint and dance and fall in love, that's our rebellion against eternity. Everything beautiful is a shield."

Louisa may just be on the precipice of adulthood...but she has an artist's soul and a wisdom far beyond her seventeen years. She is still reeling from the death of her friend and twin flame, Fish, who she bonded with during their time in foster care and feels that without her, she has no one left. One special painting has kept her company during this difficult time though: the painting depicts a group of friends in the ocean. Although she only has a copy with her, her sentimental attachment to the painting convinces her that she needs to see the original in person, and she sets off on a quest. When she arrives at the auction where the painting is waiting to be sold, however, she ends up meeting the painter's friend, Ted...and the meeting seems destined in a way that neither party can explain...just yet, anyway.

What follows is a quest (Quest? She was ALREADY on a quest!), where Louisa and Ted travel by train to carry out the artist's final wishes...and Louisa is treated to a beautifully complex tale of friendship, love, and grief that led to the painting's creation, entrance in a competition, and ends with these two strangers forming a unique and inexplicable bond all their own. But with so much collective pain and loss oscillating back and forth between this unlikely pair, can they bridge the chasms of their grief together and forge a new path towards connection and joy? Or will Louisa's shock at the TRUE meaning of the story (and the loss of a very important urn) be the nail in the coffin of this budding friendship?

I'll start with a bold statement: Fredrik Backman is one of THE great artists and most poignant wordsmiths of the modern era. It feels impossible to write a review that does his work justice. Even the simplest contemplation and seemingly conspicuous observations of the human condition comes alive through Backman's pen, but he never ostracizes the reader with lofty, unapproachable prose. His books are the type you want to highlight - A LOT - even if you swear you're not the type to ever set pen or highlighter to the page. Quotable beyond measure, his reflections on grief and art are a particular high point of this novel, and this is one of those books that finds beauty in simplicity while still philosophizing on the bigger questions of life and existence and all that makes us whole as a human race.

So why not a glowing 5 star review for this one? I think it came down to a few aspects for me that just didn't quite click fully and a story line that felt less intriguing to me than some of Backman's other work. For one, there are LOTS of fart jokes and references in this book (and one that's even central to the plot, somehow!) and that sort of thing takes me instantly out of reflective mode and feels a bit juvenile in the context of all that is explored in these pages. While I loved the dual timeline as a concept, I felt that most of the important 'action' took place in the past (for Louisa AND Ted) and yet this timeline also seemed to have less going on in terms of plot, so the pacing felt a bit off. Our MCs (and Backman) had to spend a lot of time telling rather than showing just to get us up to speed on the backstory, and while I felt like I understood Ted's friends to an extent, they all could have had their OWN books with how much was going on in each of their lives. This made the first half of the book feel a bit bogged down, but DID work to set up Act Two beautifully.

...And as is almost ALWAYS the case with Backman, the threads of these plot lines wove together effortlessly by the end of the book. Although I do think this is one of the rare instances where a Backman book could have been shortened JUST a bit, all of the set up pays off in the climactic conclusion and feels earned by the time the reader arrives there. Though the ending of this one isn't neat and square by any means, this again just speaks to Backman's dedication to remaining grounded and rooted in realism. While this may not have been my quickest Backman read, or one where the characters felt like the friends I just hadn't had the pleasure to meet yet, his musings on art, connection, and the hole left by grief alone are enough to make this a memorable read in its own right.

With art, there is no wrong way to see it, and when it comes to Backman's writing, there is truly no wrong way to READ it.

Or as Henry David Thoreau so succinctly put it, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

4.5 stars

What a brilliantly written book! It's unique back and forth storytelling captivated me from the first chapter. Things progress quickly with Louisa and her journey with Ted, which is a delightful contrast to how the artist's story slowly unfolds in the past. The dialogue and details of the characters and their lives made it seem like I knew them myself. He portrays the beauty of humanity, friendship, love and death so beautifully and seamlessly, making it quite an emotional rollercoaster. The best kind of ride. Backman kept me wanting more until the very end -- and what an ending at that! I wasn't sure how I wanted to see things end, but I was so pleasantly satisfied when I was done I cried.

Wow. I’m not sure I have the right words for this story.

It’s very every day life but so beautiful because of it.

It starts with a young girl who’s run away from her foster home just before turning 18. She just has to see the painting that has been so special to her in person as it’s being sold at auction.

Unsurprisingly this rough teen is kicked out of the fancy schmancy auction and ends up meeting who she initially thinks is a homeless man but ends up being someone who’ll change her entire future.

As we meet this man we also meet his childhood friend and get a story of a summer more than 20 years ago all about their friends group.

I don’t think a book has ever had me crying so early as this one did. The people are fabulous. The story is heartfelt.

Please read this!

Backman has a way of making the reader (it's me, the reader is me) laugh and in the next 30 milliseconds, have tears running down my face.

The way he uses the simplest of language to create the most indelible characters,

I will read anything this man writes!!!

Fredrik Backman is at the tippy top of my auto-read authors list, so of course I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy of his latest novel. Backman has a way of writing about the human experience like no one else, and this book was no exception. I absolutely adored it.

This stunning novel took a deep dive into friendship, love, tragedy, hope, heartbreak, and everything in between and managed to tackle it all with heart and humor. As I typically do for Backman, I highlighted so many passages. There were just so many times a single sentence would just stun me and make me feel all the feels. He truly has a way of telling you, in just a few words, exactly who a character is.

The characters in this story felt so real and loveable. I love that he really shone a light on male friendship, specifically in adolescence — a topic I don’t think we see enough in media. These characters have my whole heart and I will be thinking about them for a long time.

I loved this book so much and highly recommend, especially if you’ve loved others by this beloved author.

Oh how I love and loathe every single Fredrik Backman book.... howw can a book make you feel so much despair and hope all at the same damn time???

Full rtc

This may be my favourite Fredrik Backman novel to date. His ability to write the human experience of friendship, loyalty, and grief is unmatched. Readers will be able to see themselves in these stories and empathize with characters who have shared experience of abusing homes/domestic violence, drug addiction, and struggles within the foster care system.
The only negative I have in regards to storytelling is in the exposition where the author tells and doesn't show. Somehow it works with this novel but if a character is troubled, manipulative, kind, etc. I want to be shown examples of why they are this way rather than told that they are.
I laughed, I cried, and I wish this book was 100 pages longer.

This was not my favorite Fredrik Backman book. I enjoyed the characters but I had a hard time staying engaged with the story.