My Friends by Fredrik Backman

MY FRIENDS by Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove and many more) will have readers laughing out loud, but it will also make them incredibly sad. There is so much clever wordplay (read the first paragraph!) that I almost gave up highlighting. Yet, there is also a great deal of death and reflection upon carrying on without our friends: “when the love of our life falls asleep for the last time, because when the soul leaves the body, evidently the last thing it does is tie our shoelaces together. In the weeks following the death we trip over thin air. It's the soul's fault.” With grief as a companion, Backman builds a friendship between Louisa, a creative young woman aging out of the care system, and Ted, a former high school teacher trying to find renewed purpose. They are an unlikely pair who meet because of a painting (a source of solace for Louisa) and the artist (a dear friend of Ted’s) who painted it. Eventually riding together on a cross-country train journey, Ted reaches back twenty-five years to tell Louisa the story of his friendship with the artist, Joar, and Ali, all fourteen-year-old characters in the famous painting. There is quite a bit of physical pain and mental anguish in that story due primarily to the abusive violence exhibited by some of the teens’ relatives. Louisa shares some of her own painful stories of life in foster homes and a lost friend, called Fish. Throughout, Backman places a great deal of emphasis on youthful friendships and the healing power of creativity. He writes, “the ultimate expression of love is nagging, we don't nag anyone the way we nag the people we love. All parents know that, and so do all best friends.” Ted and Louisa banter, bond, get on each other’s nerves, and care for each other as their own friendship develops and the story continues, certain to surprise readers. MY FRIENDS is a LibraryReads Hall of Fame selection for May 2025 and received a starred review from Booklist (“Irrepressible humor, boundless grief, and eternal loyalty coalesce.”) As Ted remarks, “what I hate most isn't that people die. What I hate most is that they're dead. That I'm alive, without them.”