My Friends
Fredrik Backman, 2025
Contemporary fiction Literary fiction
A teenage vandal, a perfect plan, and a painting worth more than a life—Backman’s funniest, most tender voice yet. A warm, witty teenage voice carries you through art, friendship and vandalism, with tender lyrical pauses.
Feels like tenderness, wonder and grief. About friendship, art and freedom.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy literary coming-of-age stories with humor and a soft spot for art. The reflective, lyrical stretches around painting and memory can slow the caper if you want a purely plot-driven read.
Why read it
Backman's comic tenderness meets a teenage view of art and friendship, giving you warmth, wit and a reason to look harder at what moves you.
A page from the book
The kind of beauty that makes you too big for your own body.
You have to know all this about Louisa, otherwise you can’t understand what a painting can mean. That there is a speed at which a heart can beat that you can’t remember when you’ve stopped being young. There is art that can be so beautiful that it makes a teenager too big for her body. There is a sort of happiness so overwhelming that it is almost unbearable, your soul seems to kick its way through your bones. You can see a painting, and for a single moment of your life, just for a single breath, you can forget to be afraid. If you’ve ever experienced that, you know how it feels. If not, there probably isn’t any way to explain it. Fredrik Backman.Backman was a teacher and blogger before his debut; his breakthrough, A Man Called Ove, began as a blog post about a grumpy neighbour.
Books that feel like this
More by Fredrik Backman
A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman, 2012
A grumpy Swedish man with strict rules and a Saab finds his orderly life interrupted by the messy neighbours next door. Funny, tender and sometimes bleak.
Anxious People
Fredrik Backman, 2019
A failed bank robber takes a roomful of apartment-viewing strangers hostage, and the police try to work out who is really trapped.
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Fredrik Backman, 2013
A seven-year-old, her irreverent grandmother, and a stairwell of odd neighbours, bound together by fairy tales and apology letters.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is My Friends for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy literary coming-of-age stories with humor and a soft spot for art. The reflective, lyrical stretches around painting and memory can slow the caper if you want a purely plot-driven read.
- What is My Friends like?
- A warm, witty teenage voice carries you through art, friendship and vandalism, with tender lyrical pauses. Feels like tenderness, wonder and grief. About friendship, art and freedom.
- What should I read after My Friends?
- If you liked My Friends, try A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles), Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak) and The Duke and I (Julia Quinn).
A taste of the feed
The friend everyone counts on, and what it costs to share him.
That’s Douglas. I count on him for everything. If I was stranded on a desert island and could only take one thing, it’d be Douglas. We can share him if you want.
Where the Wild Things Are · Maurice Sendak
Some feelings arrive before the vocabulary does.
His mouth captured hers, trying to show her with his kiss what he was still learning to express in words. He loved her. He worshipped her. He’d walk across fire for her. He— —still had the audience of her three brothers. Slowly breaking the kiss, he turned his face to the side. Anthony, Benedict, and Colin were still standing in the foyer. Anthony was studying the ceiling, Benedict was pretending to inspect his fingernails, and Colin was staring quite shamelessly.
The Duke and I · Julia Quinn
Someone is quietly making plans to fix a heart that isn't his.
As a general rule, I like holes. A hole at the top of my tank gives me freedom. But I do not like the hole in her heart. She only has one, not three, like me. Tova’s heart. I will do everything I can to help her fill it.
Remarkably Bright Creatures · Shelby Van Pelt
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