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A Novel
by Fredrik Backman
Book Reviewed by:#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger's life twenty-five years later.
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 the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.
Twenty-five years earlier, 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 each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa's care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn 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 nervous she becomes about what she'll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don't always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.
One
Louisa is a teenager, the best kind of human. The evidence for this is very simple: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don't think that teenagers are the best humans are adults. Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans.
It's one of the last days before Easter. Very soon Louisa is going to be thrown out of an art auction for vandalising a valuable painting. Old ladies will shriek and the police will come and it really wasn't planned. Not to brag, but Louisa did have a perfect plan, it wasn't the plan's fault that she didn't stick to it. Because sometimes Louisa is a genius, but sometimes she isn't a genius, and the problem is that the genius and the non-genius share a brain. But the plan? Perfect.
The auction is one where extremely rich people go to buy ridiculously expensive art, so teenagers aren't welcome there, especially not teenagers with backpacks full of cans of spray ...
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (4/09/2026)
Haha, @Lynne_G , that's too funny. I've run into such things myself, and I find it a little irritating when two authors choose the same title. Case in point: My Friends, used by both Hisham Matar and Fredrik Backman. So far, I'm really enjoying The Trees (the one by Percival Everett) though!
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (1/22/2026)
I started My Friends by Fredrik Backman.
-Diane_Jones
Did you read any translated books last year? If so, what was its title, and in what language was it originally written?
Discontent: A Novel by Beatriz Serrano. Spanish. About a young woman in Madrid who hates her job at an advertising company. Wickedly funny. My Friends by Fredrik Backman: Swedish We'll Prescribe You. Cat by Syou Ishida: Japanese. Quirky, charming book about a mysterious clinic that recommends cats to unhappy people.
-Vivian_H
What books, if any, did you receive this holiday season, and what books, if any, did you give to others?
Great choices! Is it the My Friends by Fredrik Backman or by Hisham Matar?
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (7/31/2025)
I finished two books today. First was My Friends by Fredrik Backman and it was great. Next was Beyond Summerland by Jenny Lecoat and it was good. I'm reading Hail Mary by Andy Weir and it's not an easy read as science...
-Melinda_J
What are you reading this week? (6/19/025)
Carol_Ann_Robb I just finished listening to My Friends, and it's a brilliantly written work by Fredrik Backman. Hope you enjoy it!
-jillg
What are you reading this week? (6/12/2025)
I just finished "Before Dorothy" so I'm ready for the discussion. I'm more than halfway through "Sunflower House" by Adriana Allegri about the Nazi Lebensborn program and have Fredrik Backman's "My Friends" waiting in the wings.
-Carol_Ann_Robb
What are you reading this week? (5/29/2025)
Almost done with The Winter Soldier for a Monday book club. Next reading My Friends by Fredrik Backman one of my favorite authors. Also looking forward to being in the bookclub for The Ghostwriter today! A book I enjoyed.
-Paula_Walters
What are you reading this week? (5/22/2025)
Half way through Isabel Allende's My Name is Emilia Del Valle. Next will be reading My Friends by Fredrik Backman. So it is a very good week!
-Paula_Walters
What was your last 5-star read, and what made you choose it?
My last five-star read was https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/20961/my-friends My Friends by https://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm/author_number/2498/fredrik-backman Fredrik Backman . I'd heard a lot about Backman's books over the years (since ht...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (5/15/2025)
I should wrap up The Busybody Book Club today, and then it's on to my review book, My Friends (the one by Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove, not the one by Hisham Matar). After that it'll probably be The Ghostwriter. In audiobook format, I'm finishing up James (and totally loving it). N...
-kim.kovacs
The narrative contains quite a lot of heartbreak, particularly in the book's early chapters...But Backman manages to find humor even in the midst of pain... And he has the amazing ability to transport his readers back to their own youths, to those idyllic childhood years before adult responsibilities took over. In reading My Friends, readers may relive their own summers, when all they did was hang out with their friends and get into innocent trouble. The wistfulness he evokes feels almost magical...continued
Full Review
(797 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Fredrik Backman's new novel, My Friends, repeatedly quotes "The Summer Day," a well-known poem by poet Mary Oliver (1936-2019).
Oliver was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, a small, rural town less than 20 miles southeast of Cleveland. Her upbringing was "chaotic" and she experienced sexual abuse at a young age, eventually finding solace in nature and spending her free time exploring the forests and wetlands near her home. "I got saved by the beauty of the world," as she put it in a 2015 interview.
By age 13, Oliver knew she wanted to be a writer, and by age 14 she had started writing poetry. In 1950, she visited Steepletop in Austerlitz, New York, the home of the poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay, which had a profound impact...
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by Don Lee
Published 2013
A sparkling bildungsroman about friendship and betrayal, art and race.
Great literature cannot grow from a neglected or impoverished soil...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
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