My Friends
By Fredrik Backman
Published 2025
Read May 2026
This reader loved A Man Called Ove and quite enjoyed Anxious People. However, this one is not on my recommended list.
Backman alternates between two story lines. The first involves Louisa, a teenager running from a foster home and a potentially budding artist, and Ted, a middle-aged man who has just lost the unrequited love of his life who happens to be a world-famous artist. Ted and Louisa meet in an alley just after he has purchased the world-famous artist’s world-famous painting. This story line follows Ted and Louisa as they travel via train to Ted’s hometown which is where he met the world-famous artist as a boy. The second story line is about the four friends that appear in the now world-famous painting, their individual and collective histories, and in particular that summer when they enable the now world-class artist to enter the now world-famous painting to a contest for young artists.
This reader tired of the author’s descriptions of each character’s terrible life and the dreadful things that kept happening to them. It was repetitive and predictable which led to my lack of engagement. This reader kept waiting to start liking a character but that never really happened. The train trip seemed to be endless; were they crossing the country? This reader thought it was within California?
This reader “stuck it out” and finished the book and was glad it was over.
