I will read everything Backman writes forever and it was so nice to be back in his brain for a full novel. I highlighted multiple lines per chapter and sometimes per page, and had to use a colour coding system for lines that made me laugh vs made me cry, such is the way with Backman books.

I loved Louisa and the gang, I loved how hopeful the ending was.

I’m always excited to recommend books that blend humor, emotion, and unforgettable characters—and *My Friends* by Fredrik Backman does just that. If you’re familiar with his writing, you know he has a knack for making you laugh one minute and get misty-eyed the next, and this novel is no exception.

At its heart, *My Friends* is a tribute to the kind of friendships that leave a lasting imprint on our lives. It follows a group of teenagers who find comfort in each other during one pivotal summer, and years later, their story resurfaces in an unexpected way. The narrative is framed around Louisa, a young artist who stumbles upon a painting connected to them and embarks on a journey to uncover its past—while also figuring out her own future.

This book is a beautiful exploration of the bonds we form, the art we leave behind, and the memories that shape us. It’s heartfelt, witty, and deeply moving—perfect for anyone who loves stories about friendship, nostalgia, and the unexpected ways our lives intertwine. Highly recommend!

Backman writes beautifully, period. His ability to create a heartfelt story about the things we consider so “every day” so poetically is outstanding. This book reminds you of the importance of the people in your life and friendships new and old. He has such a unique way of developing characters. The characters feel so “real”, readers are easily able to connect with them and connect with what they’re feeling.

Grief is a big topic in this book in more aspects than death but also loss and change. Reading this book for me at the time I’m at in my life was difficult which is why it took me over a month to finish but that does not take away from the beauty of the writing or the story itself.

A beautiful story about life, loss, love and friendship, a must read if you’re a general fiction lover and particularly if you’re a fan of Fredrik Backman.

Very grateful for NetGalley and Atria books for allowing me to read and review a digital copy of this beautiful book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the arc - I was bouncing around my lounge when I saw the notification come through!!

This was a super anticipated book for me despite never reading from Bachman before. I hear nothing but astounding reviews for his previous books, so I was thrilled to be able to start this before its release.

The writing style caught me off guard to begin with, I wasn’t expecting him to write with such humor amongst the sadness and commentary. It is SUCH a quotable book, I have so many highlighted sections and parts that really resonated with me. Sometimes the humor felt a little off and childish which unfortunately drew me out of the story, though.

I did find it hard to get into the groove of the story. I kept picking it up and putting it down, not feeling super connected to the characters or what was unfolding. I think it was perhaps a little too long, or would’ve benefited from an immersive read with the audio to help move things along. But despite that I’m glad that I stuck with it and let myself get absorbed in his writing - Bachman has such a ‘simplistic’ yet strong writing voice, it truly is a joy to read.

Grab your highlighters and a box of tissues!!

I am devastated to give this book a 2 star rating. Backman is one of my favorite authors of all time but this story took me nearly 40 days to read because I kept getting so bored. I found that I couldn’t connect to any character and when ai got close, the chapter ended and it switched to present day.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?” - The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

As soon as I read this quote I knew this book was going to be magic. Fredrik Backman has a way of writing characters perfectly flawed while also being believable. Louisa and Ted were the perfect, unsuspecting main characters for this story and I loved the back and forth timelines. Learning the story of the friends along with Louisa kept me interested and at times felt eager to keep reading. Backman writes stories about human connection so beautifully. Definitely add this to your list of new releases to watch for!

• thank you to netgalley & atria books for an ARC of My Friends. All thoughts are my own :)

“I wouldn’t have swapped those idiots for a thousand childhoods.”

"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 am speechless about how much i had loved this book and the experience i had while reading it. throughout reading this book i had felt every single emotion possible. i was crying, laughing & even laughing while crying at some points. no words could fully describe my feelings for this amazing book.

i love every single one of the characters and loved being able to learn more about them and what made them the way that they are. i do wish we had learned more about louisa and her past but still loved hearing about everyone else in the story. while reading this, i felt like i was in the story itself and experiencing everything that was happening and felt thoroughly connected to every character.

this book has instantly become one of my favorites and will forever recommend it to everyone i talk to.

Fredrik Backman has a way of capturing the depths of human emotion like few authors can, and My Friends is yet another masterpiece that tugs at the heartstrings. From the very first page, I was completely invested in the story, drawn into the lives of the characters with Backman’s signature blend of humor, warmth, and heartbreak.

Fans of his previous works will absolutely love this book. Backman’s storytelling remains as captivating as ever, weaving together moments of joy, sorrow, and deep introspection. His ability to make everyday life feel extraordinary is on full display, and the emotional weight of the story is undeniable.

I found myself tearing up multiple times, overwhelmed by the raw honesty in his writing. The relationships, the struggles, the quiet moments of love and loss—all of it hit hard. Backman doesn’t just tell a story; he makes you feel it in your bones. My Friends is a beautiful, moving novel that lingers in your heart long after you’ve turned the last page.

first off, I want to thank Atria Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I fell in love with Backmans writing from the moment I read his amazing book “A Man Called Ove” so I was incredibly excited and honoured to have received an ARC of this book. This book was phenomenal, heartbreakingly beautiful. I laughed and cried. The story was so beautifully written I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t believe he’d done it again. Wrote another masterpiece. The characters in this book reminded me of the characters in the movie “Stand By Me” coming from different homes, different backgrounds.. what they all went through and how the power of friendship truly can save a person from ending it all. I was invested in every line. Backman never misses. His messages always truly mean something.

I almost didn't give this book a fair chance when I began reading it... Thankfully I got over my hesitation, because by the end, I was barely able to read the words on the page through the tears welling up in my eyes. This was, simply put, a beautiful novel. Full of heartbreak, laughter, violence, death, and SO MUCH LIFE.

Backman has this way of writing about simple moments and turning them into the most heartwarming or heart-wrenching sentences you've ever read. His writing style is not for everyone, but I urge you to give it a shot. I compare the narration of this novel (and some of his others, quite frankly) to the zooming in of a camera lens... It's as if the reader is in the sky looking down on this cast of 4 teenagers and feeling so outside of their jokes, idiosyncrasies, insults, and hardships (even their names!) and as we learn more about them, their history, their plans for the future, and their drive to just live and be happy, you feel a part of them, completely absorbed by their love for one another, laughing alongside them, clenching your fists when they get hurt, and crying when they feel sad (and boy is there a lot of it).

This is a book about art, about love and friendship, a book about grief and the happiness of infinite nows, about small towns and breaking cycles; but most of all, it's a book reminding you to live life to the fullest and appreciate the beauty in everyone and everything around you.

I wish with all my heart that I could give this book 5 stars... Fredrik Backman is my favorite author of all time, his prose is just beyond this word!
And this book is good, it is really good, but sadly it isn't quite a 5.
A few tropes are a little overdone, a little too much is still left unsaid, a few switcheroo's that just didn't work for me. Still, a solid 4, definitely worth reading. So much to gain here, and Backman definitely delivers.
This book is about friendship and art, about belonging, find your people and finding yourself.
Four down and out kids grow up the best of friends in a small town, one gets out. He becomes a world famous artist. Near the end of his life he meets a young girl who he see's something special in. On his death bed, he tells his best friend to give her his most famous painting. Said friend finds the girl, also a down-and-out sort of person, and they begin a long journey home. Along the way the friend tells the girl the life story of the four friends. She gets invested in the lives of these people (so did I!) and it is interesting at the end to see how it all turns out.
Yes, I know this synopsis is a bit vague, but I don't want to give anything away - go read it for yourself!
Anything Fredrik Backman writes is worth reading!! (Just check out his Instagram page, his posts are the very best.)

This may be one of my top books ever. Backman has a way of making you want to highlight nearly every other sentence. He's thought-provoking and drops you into the soul of multiple characters all at once. You'll fall in love with every single one of his "friends" in this book and hang on every word. Brilliant!

As some who has a lot of Backman’s titles in my favorites of all time shelf, tragically “My Friends” was my first miss from this author. “My Friends” has an intriguing premise of reflecting on adolescence, what art represents & the power of human connection. We follow both Louisa in the modern day as a freshly turned 18 year old as she struggles to find her place in the world without her best friend. Her other main love in her life is the painting, On the Sea. On the Sea was painted by “the artist” 25 years prior and represents the love he had for his friends during that time and how all of them were trying to get out of what life expected from them. To not go into major details, the novel follows Louisa meeting that friend group now and the friend group when they were 15.

While I found some great nuance in the emotions surrounding grief and how art is viewed, I kept being taken out of the story due the excessive amount of fart jokes. I understand the intention but really every 10 pages, a fart joke, really? Also in my opinion that would have worked better if they were younger, but like at 15 … really. It read more as cringey, it wasn’t endearing and just felt like a basic way to convey a “childlike” character rather than the delve into more stuff they did as kids. I just never felt like I really knew the 15 year olds, just that they found farts funny.

This just seems to be a case of this book isn’t for me, I know a lot of people will adore this book but it’s not for me. I didn’t connect to Louisa at all and found her grating, which I love that Backman choses to show people flaws and all but just never clicked for me here. Would have loved this a heck of a lot more if the humor wasn’t so crude and surface level. And I’m not disagreeing that farts are funny, they are occasionally (key-word occasionally).

⭐️⭐️💫

I first want to say that I LOVE Fredrik Backman. I’ve read several of his novels, and many of them remain among my favorite books ever. Therefore, I do understand that I likely came into this one with bigger expectations than other readers might have.

However…this one was a huge disappointment to me. There’s no denying Backman’s writing talent - I highlighted several sections that were just so beautifully written and full of emotion. He has a way of putting into writing the thoughts many of us have but just can’t quite articulate. So for that, bravo as usual.

However, the entire novel felt like misery porn to me?? I don’t know, I just felt like it was cliche that every single character had some depressing backstory or traumatic experience. And yes, Backman’s other books have similar vibes, but for whatever reason it really irked me in this one. I also felt like the characters were two dimensional and I never felt fully invested in their stories. Maybe it’s just me and the stage of life I’m in, but I found myself skimming some sections and feeling bored.

TLDR: I will always be a Backman fan, and the Beartown series is probably my favorite book series aside from Harry Potter. However, this was my least favorite book of his that I’ve read thus far, and was somewhat disappointing.

Backman is hands-down the most gifted storyteller of our times. Every one of his books is a marvel in storytelling each unique from the previous and his next. He creates characters who wear their hearts on their sleeves, he develops storylines that every reader can relate to in one way or another (I do not ice skate, play or watch hockey yet the Beartown trilogy was incredible).

The beautiful language in these stories are marvel given how they are translated, although having met Bachman there’s nothing wrong with his English and he would do a wonderful job if he wrote in that language.

This his latest, to be published in May, broke my heart 1 million times before it bound the pieces back together again over and over again. It is an incredible story that will make you laugh and cry in the same paragraph. I don’t know where he gets his ideas from, it truly is a miracle of imagination and incredibly inspiring that somebody could be this gifted. These are a lot of words, but I am at a loss and not gifted enough myself to describe what this experience was like.

Thank you, NetGalley and Atria books for the super early peak into this May release that everyone should read. I am eternally grateful to have had the opportunity to preview this and to discuss it with everyone and anyone willing to listen to my spiel. I will continue to shout its praises until its release in May!

I’m ashamed to say that this is my first book by Fredrik Backman , and it definitely won’t be my last. Such a beautifully written novel filled with grief. Love, and amazing storytelling. Louisa will forever be close to my heart.

Fredrik Backman's "My Friends" isn't a standalone novel, but rather a short story or novella often included in collections or available as a standalone e-book. Therefore, a full "review" in the traditional sense might not be appropriate. However, I can offer a brief description and impression:

"My Friends" is a poignant and bittersweet exploration of friendship, aging, and memory. Backman's signature style – heartwarming, humorous, and tinged with melancholy – shines through as he portrays an elderly man reflecting on his life and the people who have shaped it. It's a short but powerful piece that packs an emotional punch, reminding readers of the enduring importance of human connection. While not a complex plot-driven narrative, it's a beautifully written and deeply felt story that will resonate with anyone who has cherished the bonds of friendship.

Another incredible book by the incredible author Fredrik Backman! What a read. The beginning chapter already hooked me. I cried, laughed and loved every minute of this. Will stay with me forever and will pick this up to read again and again!

Fredrik Backman is an easy auto-read author for me.

My Friends lived up to my expectations. A story-telling style that sucked me in. Ordinary people that tell about friendship, love, overcoming, and so much more. Backman never lets me down. I truly loved this one.

Fredrik Backman is my favorite author of all time. I’ve read everything that he’s written and loved it all. The newest book from him I has everything I love - greet writing, memorable characters, and so much heart. I will forever recommend his books to everyone I know.