Becky's Great Book Reviews My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman has a way of slipping in zingers throughout his writing that will stop you in your tracks. My Friends is abundant with those, weaving the story of four childhood friends into a beautiful tapestry.

My Friends is a story about love, friendship, art and being human. Louisa is an eighteen-year-old child of foster homes who sneaks into an art museum one day. She only wants to see a famous painting, but it leads to her meeting the artist of that painting and hearing the story of the three childhood friends featured in the painting: they were responsible for making him the uber successful artist he becomes.

One such aforementioned zinger Backman pens reads, "the ultimate expression of love is nagging, we don't nag anyone the way we nag the people we love." Thus, the nudging the artist gets from one of his friends (and eventually all) sets his trajectory in motion. The story seamlessly goes between Louisa's present and the past where she hears about the friends featured in the now famous painting.

The friends all come from a disadvantaged childhood and bond in their trauma. Backman creates a wonderful narrative of these four youngsters and how their love and belief in each other are everything. The four always leave each other by calling out, "tomorrow" and then later, "I believe in you". Those words somehow come across as more powerful than "I love you".

It's hard to read My Friends with dry eyes and even harder to remember the main characters are fictional. Backman's humor lends levity to the novel and it ends on a high note. There's a character in the book that says, "Great art is a small break from human despair". Anyone that's ever appreciated a beautiful painting, a good book, or a lovely piece of music knows that.

This great work of storytelling gets five stars out of five from me.