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.