My Friends: A Novel

Backman is one of the only authors to make me laugh and cry over the same paragraph. If you haven't read this yet you need to. Loved this book.

This book checked off all the boxes. It had beautifully created characters, thought provoking ideas about friendship and art. It was the first book in a very long time to genuinely touch my heart.

Backman is an author I’ll read without question, and this book was no exception. His characters are the kind that linger long after the story ends—flawed, lovable, and profoundly human. The life lessons are woven in with humor and heart, making me laugh and cry in equal measure. It’s a reminder that love often finds us where we least expect it, and that family is more than just blood. Book #49 in 2025

When poet Mary Oliver asked, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?" Fredrik Backman answered My Friends. On the run from a foster home and carrying a world-famous painting worth a fortune and traveling with a strange man whose last name she doesn’t even know, “Louisa is just a normal teenager, the best kind of humans.” They escape together on an unforgettable journey. “Ted looks out through the train window and sees a whole life. It's strange what our memories do to us, editing our feelings…Because he remembers now that this was how they dragged the artist back to life after Christian's funeral: one giggle at a time…she laughed so loudly that you could still hear it when she was underwater. And that was how the artist decided to paint them, not the way they looked, but how they made him feel. He decided to call the picture The One of the Sea…As if those four teenagers twenty-five years ago weren't a love story, belonging to each other forever, impossible to separate. Ashes or not.” “Life is long, but it moves at high speed, a single step here or there can be enough to ruin everything…Perhaps it was fate, perhaps coincidence, perhaps the big brother would just remember what his little brother had said, the bit about picking friends that are better than you. Perhaps knowing that you are enough for one person goes a long way.” “‘I love you and I trust you," he smiles, and pats the stone. Then he walks back to the gate, picks up his suitcase and the box containing the painting, and nods to Louisa: ‘Come on. Not far to go now.’ ‘To what?’ ‘The end of the story,’ he says…when they walk to the end of the pier and sit there dangling their legs over the edge, Louisa sees exactly what the four friends saw twenty-five years ago: an endless sea, a great friendship, a true love story. She hears them giggle. Detects the smell of a fart. All of it.” My Friends is a masterpiece.

Wonderful characters.