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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.
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)
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(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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If you liked My Friends, try these:
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by Fredrik Backman
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In this bestselling and delightfully quirky debut novel from Sweden, a grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door. Winner of the 2014 BookBrowse Debut Novel Award.
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Making Friends Can Be Murder
by Kathleen West
Thirty-year-old Sarah Jones is drawn into a neighborhood murder mystery after befriending a deceptive con artist.
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At times, our own light goes out, and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
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