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My Friends
Paperback

My Friends

$34.99
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#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 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 town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.

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MORE INFO
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Simon & Schuster Ltd
Country
United Kingdom
Date
4 June 2025
Pages
448
ISBN
9781398516403

#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 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 town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.

Read More
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Simon & Schuster Ltd
Country
United Kingdom
Date
4 June 2025
Pages
448
ISBN
9781398516403
 
Book Review

My Friends
by Fredrik Backman

by Kate McIntosh, May 2025

Twenty-five years ago, four teenage friends spent one last summer together. Each of them had their own problems, but as a group they were unstoppable. Joar, Ted, Ali and the artist knew they probably wouldn’t be friends forever, but at 14, forever can seem a long, long way away.

Now, Ted is nearly 40. He’s a history teacher who hasn’t taught since he was stabbed by a student, and he has just lost the love of his life. Louisa is a foster kid about to turn 18 who has also just lost her best friend, her human, her world. An accidental meeting brings these two very different characters together, and as their stories unfold, so does the laughter, and the tears. As they travel back to the town Ted grew up in, the memory of that last summer goes with them in the form of a painting. The artist painted the sea, with a pier, and on that pier are three tiny figures: his friends. Louisa has loved that painting since the first time she saw it on a postcard and now it is hers, and so she must know the story behind it.

Fredrik Backman wrote A Man Called Ove and Beartown, among several other heartwarming, and heartbreaking, novels. The characters he imagines into being are incredibly real. They are flawed, they are funny, they are anxious, they are angry, they are loved, and they are us, which is how he makes me cry every single time. This is not his best story, but it does feel as though it might have been written in an attempt to understand his own fears, his depression and his struggle to deal with the world around him. And because it is so personal, it is even more poignant.