An easy read and very enjoyable! A little slow at first but once you’re hooked, it goes by quickly. Great writing, great characters, great read.

Fredrik Backman is a gift. His books are, for me, the very best of what a book can be: deep, character-driven, emotional, memorable and a story to be lost in. I took forever reading this book because I did not want it to end. I wanted to live in Backman's world for as long as possible.

This is the story of four friends. It's a story of friendship, it's a story of family. It's a story of connection. It's a story of sacrifice. It's a story of what happens when flawed people share lives together. It's a story of forgiveness. It's a story of joy. It's a story of the gift and tragedy of childhood. It's a story of the gift and tragedy of success. It's a story of seeing and being seen.

This story is truly, deeply magical. I cannot tell you how much I loved it. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me smile, and it made me weep. It will stay with me just like all of his other stories have. How lucky are we to live at the same time as this wonderful author? And how lucky are we that he chose to share his gifts with us?

with gratitude to Atria Books and netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria books for the eARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This author, Fredrik Backman writes some truly noteworthy books. With that being said, his style of writing is not my favorite and made the story a little bit harder for me to read. I liked the characters, he has a way to just make you really enjoy them with his unique style. Overall, I think people will enjoy this book, it just wasn't my favorite.

Fredrik Backman never fails to make me laugh and cry in the same page. This was a really beautiful story of friendships new and old, memory, grief, and art. Throughout, Backman kept surprising me, keeping me as the reader on my toes as he continually subverted expectations. I've read everything he has published and will continue to read his work as long as he writes. I've already recommended and put multiple people on hold for this at the library I work at, and imagine it will circulate like crazy once we get it in.

I have a new favorite book in Fredrik Backman’s My Friends. Backman is particularly adept at writing bearable grief and always skews toward a hopeful view of humanity, despite the complications inherent in being human. In My Friends, more than any of the other Backman books I’ve read, the hope shines brighter. As always, Backman’s characters are nuanced and complicated, very rarely all good or all bad. My Friends follows the teenaged Louisa as she learns the truth of the people behind the painting that has gotten her through some of her darkest days. Filled with love, grief, and hope, My Friends is a bittersweet elegy to the end of childhood and a love letter to the friends that change our lives. I truly loved it.

A postcard of a painting has inspired Louisa through her foster care journey. She can see in the painting what others cannot. She finds a way to see the painting at auction and in so doing finds the painter himself. The story of the painting, and the FRIENDS who were in the painting , is heart wrenching but also compelling. Louisa take an unexpected adventure to find out the story behind the painting. Finally understanding her own artistry and life.

"I love you. I trust you"

Fredrik Backman makes me tear up every single time I read his books. This is a beautiful story about friendship, love, and the sacrifices we make for each other. One of my favorite quotes: 

"It's a funny thing. The person we fall in love with, we hardly ever call by their name, because it's somehow just so obvious that it's you I'm talking to, that it's you I'm always thinking of. Who else?" 

I do recommend going into this a bit blind so grab a cozy blanket, make yourself a warm drink, get out the tissues, and get ready to feel all the feels.

My Friends by Fredrik Bachman
Publishing date - 05/06/25
Rating (5/5) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC.
Backman has done it again! This is one of my top reads of 2025. I loved this book so much — I laughed, I cried. The story is about friendship, loyalty, second chances, and love. But there is also abuse, grief, hardship, and despair. The characters are memorable and I hope Bachman decides to write a sequel - so we could get more on Louisa’s story. Highly recommend this one when it releases on May 6th!!

I was thrilled to read Backman's newest book, My Friends.

If you are fortunate enough to have close friends, like the characters in this book, you are more than likely to call them your 'best friends'. Joar, Ali, Ted, and The Artist face many challenges in the short amount of time they get to have together ~ at the age of 14 ~ but they connect and have eachothers back. Some have known eachother longer than others. (I don't want to post spoilers) I loved, loved their friendship!

20 years later we get to hear the story of how their bond grew as Ted meets Louisa and tells her the cherished friendship story.

The beginning was a little slow for me but then I was captured and could not put the book down. Backman's books get me every single time and I truly was not disappointed with this one!

4.5*

Thank you, NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC.

The depth of the characters in Fredrik Backman’s book will never cease to amaze me. Each of his novels is a journey, and the way he weaves past and present timelines is an art. No one can imagine a group of teenage idiots like he can, while tucking little gems of wisdom into every chapter that make me want to get out a highlighter for the first time since college (but I don’t because I’d wind up highlighting half the book).

Having recently finished “My Friends” by Fredrik Backman, I am happy to have had the chance for the Advanced Reader’s Edition e-copy; thank you NetGalley and Atria Books!

I loved this story of enduring friendship; but it wasn't until I had finished at least half the book that I actually began to enjoy the memories and adventures of this group of friends. It ended up being a book that I’m glad to have read, but was just too jumpy and scattered for me to truly enjoy.

I feel like I lived 1,000 lives with these characters. They’re MY FRIENDS now.

Backman has done it again and I’m honestly kinda speechless. No one understands what it’s like to be human more, no one’s writing is a clever, and if anyone asks me to “name 5 people who would you want to have dinner with dead or alive?” he’s on my list every time.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
My Friends releases May 6, 2025

“Being human is to grieve, constantly.”

My Friends is an homage to friendship, and the lasting influence of art. It’s in knowing that you don’t have to be rich in life to be rich in companionship. It’s the embodiment of a picture being worth a thousand words.

The characters that Backman has brought to life are ones that feel so deeply. Their ability to navigate hardships and perceive the world around them at such a young age is an endurance that takes most individuals an entire lifetime to grasp.
These are characters you can’t help but want to hold close, wrapping them in a protective bubble, and cherishing all the ways they make living a little bit more bearable for each other.

A part of me is dying that the cover wasn’t a vintage postcard depicting C. Jat’s painting of the pier as I think it would have encompassed the tone of the story much better, while adding a layer of sentimentality.

cw: mention of suicide, self-harm, physical abuse, SA, suicidal ideation

I loved how this story shows the timeline of the friends at age 14 and 40 as they are going through life and experiencing joy and heartbreak. This story includes so many characters who have become hopeless but they have each other. Their friendship is such a beautiful part of the story. It shows how joy can grow even from a lot of heartbreak and trials with the help and encouragement from friends.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I knew early on that this book would tug at my heartstrings and make me feel emotional, and boy did it. This is a masterpiece. Absolute perfection. I won't take any criticism on it.

This book made me cherish my friendships and want to be young and high on life again. I adored this, and I feel like I need to wrap my friends in a warm hug and tell them I love them. I may just re-read this every year and revel in the feelings that only our closest friends can give us.

Fredrick Backman has done it again! I adored this book and couldn’t wait to squirrel away time to devote to finishing this book once I started it. 10/10 must read!

I'm not even sure how to start this review, because I feel like this is a book I never knew I needed.

Fredrik Backman - wow the author that you are - I'm in awe of this story and how well crafted it was. Forever a fan now.

We go back and forth between present day and the past, while we go through a few POVs. Normally this is confusing for me, but I think it actually helped carry more weight during the narrative. We follow Louisa and a few other characters (they rotate depending on who's most important in the stories from the past). While we got to know them, a common thread develops that really makes the phrase "one of us" so important to not only show how they all can relate to certain traumas, but how they then come together in the most beautiful way.

This is my first novel by Fredrik Backman, so I don't think I was emotionally prepared, but this book took me through the wringer. I laughed out loud, teared up, felt my heart wrench, and everything in between. Most of the story is told from the POV of teens (even though some of the narrators may be adults in the present day), so having that perspective of the anguish and upbringing these kids go through from THEIR POV as kids is intense. Truly makes me appreciate my life and MY FRIENDS so much more.

I loved this book so much -- I laughed, I cried. I bookmarked so many quotes and passages, but I'm not supposed to quote them until the book is published. The story is about friendship, loyalty, second chances, and love. But there is also abuse (very difficult to read), grief, hardship and despair.

Joar is fiercely protective of his mother -- his father, a horrible drunk -- takes his anger out on his wife and son. Joar has the biggest heart and finds comfort with his tight group of friends, but he also is hot-headed and quick to fight -- never starting a fight, but always reacting to misdoings.

Ted is my favorite character: loyal, a voracious reader, smart, funny (although mostly when he doesn't mean to be), neurotic, and a joy to read about.

The Artist (aka KimKim) is so talented, yet so unable to believe in his artistic abilities. Joar practically forces him to enter a painting contest, because he knows Kim's only chance for a future is away from their small town.

Ali was late to the group of four, but she brought a vitality and joy that the other three fed off of.

Then there is Louisa, a soon-to-be 18-year-old, who spent her life in foster care, recently lost her only friend, and a budding artist in her own right. She carries around a postcard of the painting that the Artist made and is now a highly sought-after masterpiece among rich collectors, and when she finds out it is up for auction, she runs away from her latest foster home, determined to see it. A chance meeting with the Artist in an alley will chance her life forever.

I finished reading the novel and can't stop thinking about it. It is definitely the best book I have read in a long time.

Thank you so much to the author, NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read and review the eARC.

Fredrik Backman delivers once again with this beautiful novel about art, friendship, grief, and the serendipity of life. The characters felt real, their pain and joys familiar. The similarities and changes in their personalities from their fourteen-year-old selves to the present is fascinating to observe and causes you to reflect on how life has changed you, too. It was bittersweet to see these friends find their safety in each other knowing loss was coming, but beautiful to witness how they formed their own little refuge where they were safe from the world's harsh and unforgiving realities, and how this extended into the future with Louisa.

The loss in this book felt so visceral and showed that honest mixture of humour and grief that is so identifiably human. By the end of the novel, I could visualise the central painting, could feel like I was there with the boys too. I found myself wishing my friends were also able to read this book because I wanted to talk about it so badly, and I can see us in these stories.

Thanks so much NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book makes me feel bared open in a way that hurts but also in a good way? For me, this is his most lyrical, poignant work to date—think of the rawness of Beartown with the prose of Anxious People. The focus of art and grief and life is terribly sad and beautifully real.
Louisa is easy to fall in love with. The world hasn’t been kind to her, but she still has so much more to see and do. Being herself was how she found her people. One thing I truly loved was the change in the artist in the way he was described as a child to the jokester he was in the beginning. Your life often feels like it’s over at fourteen, but it’s not. The rest of our crew are near and dear to my heart. Life, in many of its facets, isn’t fair, but when you find your people? That’s what makes life great. They found their people. It spans generations. It continues with us.
Art and creativity is what the world beats on for. It reminds us of the awe and wonder we had as children, gives us goosebumps as we stand parallel with others among the decades, and holds our happiest memories. Art is equivalent of breathing, the way we leave our mark upon the world and yet it is so easily forgotten and made a commodity.
The grief in this book was so realistic that I was on the verge of tears the entire first half. The kind of tears that come from the raw ache of happiness. I felt as if I walked along side our friends, took part in their stories, drank their jokes from the page. It reminded me that life isn’t counted in years, but in memories. And thus, the loss felt incredibly real.
The way I know this book is special is the same way I know my heartbeat. This is for all of us creatives and for those who need the reminder. It’s to show how life continues on and jokes never end despite what you may think. It gives you a family. And so I leave you with this,
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver

Thank you to the author and publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.