My Friends by Fredrik Backman

-

🎨 My Friends by Fredrik Backman — A Beautiful Mess of Pain, Humor & Humanity (⭐ 4.5 Stars)

Okay WOW. My very first Backman book and… I get it now. I totally get the hype. 😭👏

This is one of those stories that somehow makes you laugh while emotionally gutting you at the exact same time. Like… sir??? Pick a struggle???

⚠️ Trigger Warnings (Read This First)

This book does not play around when it comes to heavy topics:

  • Substance abuse & addiction

  • Sexual assault

  • Child abuse & domestic violence

  • Self-harm & suicidal ideation

  • Bullying & anti-gay bias

  • Illness & terminal disease

  • Death & grief

  • Mental illness

👉 Basically: bring tissues. And maybe emotional support snacks.

📖 Overview (Spoiler-Free-ish Setup)

My Friends (2025) follows two timelines:

  • Present day: a troubled teen artist named Louisa

  • 25 years earlier: a group of four teenagers whose bond changes everything

At the center of it all? A painting. 🎨
And not just any painting — one that quietly holds an entire lifetime of love, loss, and friendship.

🚨 SPOILER WARNING — FULL PLOT + ENDING BELOW 🚨

(Seriously. I’m going ALL in. No holding back.)

🧵 Detailed Plot Summary (With All the Spoilers You Came For)

🎨 Present Day: Louisa & The Painting

Louisa is a foster kid, grieving her best friend Fish, and running on pure chaos energy. She breaks into an art auction (iconic behavior, honestly) to protest how art is treated like a commodity 💅

She’s obsessed with a painting called “The One of the Sea” — three friends sitting on a pier.

Instead of quietly admiring it like a normal person… she spray paints a tiny red fish next to it and gets kicked out. As one does.

Outside, she meets a dying man… who casually turns out to be the artist:
👉 C. Jat (aka Kimkim)

Before he dies, he asks his friend Ted to find Louisa and give her the painting.

Yes. Just… hands over a wildly valuable masterpiece to a teenage graffiti artist.
Backman said TRUST THE VIBES 😂

🚂 The Journey Begins

Ted tracks Louisa down and gives her the painting. She’s like:

“Sir, I am literally homeless. Where do you think I’m putting this??”

So naturally, she forces her way onto a train with him as he returns Kimkim’s ashes to their hometown.

And this is where the story REALLY begins.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 25 Years Ago: The Original Friend Group

We meet:

  • Ted – gentle, observant, quietly broken

  • Kimkim – artistic, misunderstood, possibly neurodivergent, deeply sensitive

  • Joar – protective, angry, loyal to a fault

  • Ali – fierce, free-spirited, the emotional glue

These kids are dealing with:

  • Poverty

  • Abuse

  • Neglect

  • Grief

  • Basically… the worst starter pack imaginable 😩

Their safe place?
👉 An abandoned pier by the sea 🌊

This is where they sit, dream, escape… and unknowingly create something eternal.

🎨 The Painting’s Origin

Kimkim loves to draw but hides it. He doesn’t think he matters.

Joar, being the chaotic ride-or-die friend, is like:

“Nope. You’re going to be famous. We’re doing this.”

They scrape together money (including Joar selling his bike 😭) so Kimkim can paint.

The result?
👉 The painting of the three friends on the pier

It’s signed “C. Jat” — honoring:

  • Christian (the janitor who encouraged Kimkim)

  • And the friends themselves

💔 The Tragedies Start Rolling In

Because Backman said: what if we just emotionally destroy everyone?

  • Ali moves away… and later drowns 🌊💔

  • Ted’s father dies

  • Joar grows up in severe abuse and nearly kills his father

  • Kimkim struggles with identity, mental health, and isolation

Despite everything, they love each other fiercely. That’s the heartbeat of this book.

🌍 Adulthood & Separation

  • Kimkim becomes a world-famous artist… but battles addiction and inner demons

  • Ted becomes a teacher, then leaves after being stabbed breaking up a fight

  • Joar ends up in prison after attacking an abuser (honestly… morally complicated king 😬)

And here’s the quiet heartbreak:
👉 They drift apart.
👉 Life happens.
👉 Love remains… but at a distance.

🕊️ Kimkim’s Final Days

Ted reunites with Kimkim when he’s dying.

And here’s the part that wrecked me:
👉 Ted has always loved him.

He stays with him until the end.
No drama. No big confession scene. Just… presence. Loyalty. Love. 😭

🏠 The Ending (And It’s Actually Hopeful??)

Back in the present timeline:

Louisa meets Joar and Christian’s mother, and learns everything.

Instead of selling the painting (which would’ve been the practical choice), they do something MUCH better:

👉 They break into a museum
👉 And hang it on the wall themselves

FULL CIRCLE. I love chaos with meaning 🥹👏

🌱 Where Everyone Ends Up

  • Louisa → goes to art school → becomes a successful artist 🎨

  • Ted → becomes a teacher for incarcerated individuals (I LOVE THIS FOR HIM)

  • Joar → still carrying grief, but still standing

  • The painting → no longer just art… it’s legacy

And most importantly:
👉 The friendship lives on through Louisa

💭 My Thoughts (Let’s Talk About It)

This book is:

  • Heartbreaking

  • Warm

  • Quietly funny in the weirdest moments

  • And somehow… comforting??

Backman has this magical ability to take the heaviest topics and layer them with humor so you’re like:

“Am I crying or laughing? BOTH?? COOL COOL COOL.”

👍 What I Loved

  • The characters — messy, real, unforgettable

  • The humor — dark but perfectly timed

  • The emotional payoff — devastating but meaningful

  • The themes — friendship, art, grief, survival

🤔 My One Tiny Hesitation

I REALLY liked this book. Like… a lot.

But did it hit me as “life-changing, most profound book ever written”?
…not quite.

And I know I’m in the minority there 😅

For me, it was more:
👉 deeply moving
👉 beautifully written
👉 but just slightly short of that transcendent “OMG THIS CHANGED ME” level

⭐ Final Rating: 4.5 Stars

✨ Emotional damage: ✔️
✨ Laugh-out-loud moments: ✔️
✨ Found family perfection: ✔️
✨ Existential crisis: optional but likely

📚 If You Loved This, Read These Next

You’re going to want more of that “hurt me but make it meaningful” energy:

🧡 Final Thoughts

This is a story about:

  • Friendship that survives everything

  • Art as a form of survival

  • Grief that never fully leaves—but softens over time

And somehow… it leaves you feeling hopeful.

Which feels illegal after everything it just put you through. 😭✨

If this was your first Backman too, I need to know — are you emotionally okay?? Or are we all just pretending to be fine now?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts This Week!

There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm

-
Image
🧠 What If the Scariest Monster Is Forgetting? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Book Review: There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm Oh. My. Brain. 😳 You know how I cannot handle horror movies? Ghosts? Dead bodies? Skeletons? Absolutely not. Hard pass. But losing your mind? Losing your memories? Losing yourself? Now that is horror on a whole different level. And this book? It weaponizes that fear. 🔥 Five stars. No hesitation. ⚠️ Content & Trigger Warnings Before we dive into this beautiful nightmare: Graphic violence Death & mass casualties Body horror Brain damage Self-harm Mental illness Substance abuse (mnestic drugs) Emotional trauma Animal death Apocalyptic themes This is not cozy sci-fi. This is existential dread in a lab coat. 🧪 📚 Overview Published: 2021 (traditional release 2025) Author: qntm (Sam Hughes) Genre: Science Fiction / Cosmic Horror / Philosophical Thriller Originally born from the SCP Wiki universe, this novel follows a secret global research group— the Unknown Organizatio...
Read more

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén

-
Image
  ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5) — WHEN THE CRANES FLY SOUTH : A Beautiful, Heavy Story I Almost DNF’d 😬🕊️ ⚠️ Trigger Warnings This book features: 🩸 Illness and death 🐕 Animal death (major emotional focus) 💭 Suicidal ideation ⚠️ Child abuse 🧠 Dementia 💔 Loss, grief, and end-of-life themes 🏳️‍🌈 Antigay bias Please read with care if any of these topics are tough for you. 💛 🧠 My Thoughts Before the Summary This is going to be the most honest review I’ve written in a while. When the Cranes Fly South is one of those extremely poignant stories that everyone seems to love — highly rated, adored by many of my friends, described as “beautiful” and “devastating” and “a must-read.” And yet… I genuinely considered DNFing it. And I rarely DNF books. Like, ever . Maybe once in my life. Why? A few reasons: 1. This book is SAD with a capital S. I don’t shy away from sad books, but this is the kind of slow, quiet sadness that settles into your chest and doesn’t leave. 2. It’s ve...
Read more

Beautiful Things by Emily Rath

-
Image
Beautiful Things (Second Sons #1) — ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ (3/5 Stars) Author: Emily Rath Series: Second Sons (Book 1) Genre: Regency Romance / Reverse Harem / Historical Romance ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNINGS Explicit sexual content Strong language (many, many F-bombs) Emotional manipulation Parental abuse (past) Classism Infidelity themes Power imbalance Alcohol use 🚨 FULL SPOILER WARNING 🚨 This review contains a complete, start-to-finish plot summary , including the ending and series setup. Proceed at your own risk. 😈📖 ✨ Overview: What Is Beautiful Things About? Beautiful Things is the debut novel from Emily Rath and the opening act of her Second Sons series. It’s a spicy Regency-era romance that blends Bridgerton-style aesthetics , modern dialogue, and an unapologetically horny heroine who inspires… intense devotion from nearly every man in her orbit. We follow Rosalie Harrow , age 22, broke, sharp-tongued, sexually confident, and freshly summoned to a duke’...
Read more

Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry

-
Image
  📘 Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry – Book Review Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️  3 out of 5 stars A raw, unsettling read that forces us to confront the unthinkable—and asks us to consider what compassion really means. ⚠️ Spoiler Alert This review discusses major plot points, including the ending. Proceed with care if you haven’t read the book yet. 🧠 What Saving Noah Is Really About This is not an easy book. It’s not meant to be. Saving Noah tackles a subject most people don’t want to acknowledge even exists: what happens when a child—a good, kind, seemingly normal child—develops an attraction to younger children? What if that child is your child? That’s exactly the nightmare that Adrienne , a mother and former competitive swimmer, finds herself living in when her 15-year-old son Noah confesses to having molested two little girls on his swim team. Noah doesn’t try to hide it. In fact, he turns himself in and begs for help. But there is no real help. Instead, Noah is arrested and...
Read more

Audition by Katie Kitamura

-
Image
🎭 Audition by Katie Kitamura — ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (3.5/5) 🛒 Buy Audition on Amazon (affiliate link) ⚠️ Trigger Warnings Pregnancy loss, abortion, emotional abuse, elder abuse, relationship tension, and grief. 💬 My Thoughts Some books feel like entertainment. Others feel like an experience . Audition falls firmly into the second category. Katie Kitamura writes in a way that’s hard to describe — it’s controlled, elegant, and quietly unsettling. The story moves slowly, but it absorbs you. You don’t just read it — you live inside it for a while. The premise sounds deceptively simple: an actress preparing for a new stage role meets a young man named Xavier, who claims to be her son. From there, the story morphs into something much stranger and deeper — about identity, performance, and the thin line between truth and illusion. I can’t say I fully understood it, and I’m not even sure it’s meant to be fully understood. It’s layered and cerebral, and at times it felt a little too “hig...
Read more

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

-
Image
  📚 The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai — ⭐ 1.5/5 Stars Beautiful Writing, Chaotic Plot, and a Whole Lot of Boredom... Ohhhh I wanted to love this one. I really did. 😩 As an Asian American who immigrated to the U.S. , I went into this book READY. I was prepared for a deep, layered exploration of immigrant loneliness , cultural displacement , racism , and the quiet ache of trying to belong in a country that doesn’t quite see you. And at first? It delivered. But then… it just… unraveled. 🫠 For a novel that won awards and was shortlisted for major prizes, this felt wildly unfocused. The central love story between Sonia and Sunny? Lovely. Thoughtful. Tender. The problem? It’s buried under 600+ pages of side plots, ghosts, financial scandals, murder, Mexico, Venice, amulets, political lectures, sexual assault, lymphoma, and a demon dog. Yes. A demon dog. Let’s talk. ⚠️ Content & Trigger Warnings This book contains: Racism Gender discrimination Religious discriminatio...
Read more