My Friends

"My Friends" is a beautifully crafted story exploring the intricate and healing power of friendships. The narrative delves into love, loyalty, regret, and redemption themes, presenting characters who feel achingly real—flawed, humorous, and deeply human. Their interactions are filled with humour, tension, and tenderness, making it impossible not to root for them as they face their challenges. Author Fredrik Backman illustrates the quiet heroism of everyday people striving to do their best, even under challenging circumstances. While the story often conveys warmth and hope, it does not shy away from complex topics, including domestic violence. These moments are addressed with empathy and depth, enhancing the overall emotional truth of the story rather than detracting from it. Backman’s prose remains poetic without becoming pretentious, and his insights into the human experience—how we hurt, heal, and forgive—are breathtaking. This book powerfully reminds us of the strength of kindness and the importance of those who support us, especially during our darkest times. "My Friends" is an unforgettable read that resonates long after the last page is turned.

I felt I should have liked this book more than I did. The setting and the characters didn’t quite resonate. Perhaps to do with the translation from Swedish.

"Twenty-five years later, he still wishes the same thing, that he was fourteen years old, and that the world was full of broken clocks." My Friends, by Fredrik Backman, is a beautiful, tender and painful (yes, beautiful, yet mostly painful) story written to quietly wreck you. It’s about friendship and art... and some memories. Memories and stories of childhood. It’s about Louisa, a young artist, a teenage orphaned artist obsessed with a decades-old painting of a sea. And to understand the story behind, she takes a journey into the lives of a group of friends who once spent a summer by that very sea... loving, hurting, growing up, falling apart. The story has two timelines – the past, where the once-young painter of the sea lives with his friends; and the present, where Louisa is listening to the past stories from one of the friends. It doesn’t have any twists at all, not in conventional terms at least. But it does have lots of secrets, lost tales that might remind you of your own younger self. Your own friends. At points, it made me so sentimental that I started missing school friends that I didn’t have. The book is hilarious and heartbreaking all at once. It’s about life and living it. And it’s classic Backman: funny without being goofy, deep without trying too hard. Backman has his way with words, with repetitions... letting the characters ramble, somehow finding a way to punch your emotions out. Some parts did feel a little stretched... but by the end, I didn’t want it to end. My Friends is a book, a story, a group of characters... that you’ll like to grieve at the end. No, no, no, it’s a happy story. But you’ll cry. It’s recommended for artists and fans of slow, slice-of-life literary fiction. It’s recommended if you aren’t afraid to cry, and if you still carry old friendships. You should sit with a box of tissues while reading it. And a trash can to throw them all in.

Good evening wow

Takes you on a ride to the edge of the cliff, with twists and turns along the way, then throws you a rope. Gut wrenching, touches many nerves, heart warming. So many thought provoking statements, there’s no skimming this novel.