Title:

My Friends

Author:

Fredrik Backman

Category:

Literature

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

February 12, 2026

dithered between a two star or three star rating, but ultimately decided that My Friends annoyed me too much, so I chose to award it just two stars. Backman does have a talent for story telling; he keeps the reader interested enough that the pages keep turning. But (as I will explain in the Spoilers section) in the end I felt Backman had been dishonest to the reader.

My Friends is the story of four friends in the summer of their fourteenth year. It is a magical time for Ted, Joar, Ali and "the artist". That is one of my annoyances - for some reason, Backman doesn't tell us the fourth character's name, he is always referred to as "the artist". At the end of the book, "the artist's" name is revealed and I could discern no reason for Backman to have kept it secret.

My Friends is the most generic book that I have read. Not only does Backman hold back the name of "the artist", he also never tells us Ali's real name. Ted's older brother is simply "big brother". Parents are "Joar's father" or "the artist's dad". No one has a last name. Backman never names the city or country they live in. The schools, the lakes, the streets, the museums - nothing is identified. No national holidays occur. The reader never learns what anyone looks like - hair, eyes, skin color, ethnicity are never specified. (The reader is told that Louisa is tall and Joar is short, but that is about the extent of physical description). Backman is a Swedish author, but there is no mention that the summer days are 20 hours long (which they would be if the story was set in Sweden). No currency is ever specified - not dollars, euros, kronar or yuan. Not only is My Friends undefined in location, it also is adrift in time. No one has a cellphone. There are no CCTV security cameras, no automated ticket machines or ATMs. There are no references to world events - no mention of the fall of the Berlin Wall or Russia's assault on Ukraine. Nothing to specify whether the story takes place yesterday or eighty years ago. The result is the blandest novels.

"The artist" is wealthy and world famous. He is also dying of an unspecified disease. When he meets Louisa, he impulsively decides to buy back his most famous painting from an auction and give it to her, even though they have just met. After all, the artist says, "Great artists are supposed to die poor". Why not just will his entire estate to Louisa, rather than selling all of his possessions to buy the painting then giving the painting to her so she can resell it for money equal to value of his entire estate? Maybe the artist likes paying commissions to art auction houses.

It is 25 years after that magical summer when Ted, Joar, Ali and the artist had the time of their life. Now Ted has given the super valuable painting to the homeless teenage Louisa, who has no idea what do with it. Ted tells her the story of everything that happened that magic summer. These memories cause Ted to cry, weep, sob, tear-up and lip tremble. I got quite fed-up with Ted shedding tears; there must be a hundred instances of Ted crying. Ted could fill an ocean with all of his teardrops.

I started out liking the characters, but the book is too long. I spent too much time enduring Ted's crying, Joar's fighting and the artist's feelings of inadequacy. I didn't like Louisa at all - she is supposed to be a tough talking brash foster child, but the way she embarrassed Ted in front of the train conductor was not funny; nor did I admire how she stole money from Ted's wallet. And I refuse to believe that the eighteen year old Louisa had never been on a train or in a restaurant before. In Backman's world, either his characters are damaged but lovable, or else they are wholly evil and violent and cruel. There doesn't seem to be any happy, well-adjusted people who have not been burdened with some tremendous tragedy. Backman repeatedly hints that this was their last summer of joy, that something dark and sinister happens at the end "after all of the funerals".

Backman loves to include wisdom in his story: "Yet the most remarkable thing about losing a parent is that you don't even need to miss them for their loss to be felt. The basic function of a parent is just to exist. You have to be there, like ballast in a boat, because otherwise your child capsizes."

Or : "Because plenty of things could be said about Joar's mom, and sadly most people said them all the time. Never directly to her, of course, it was actually pretty remarkable that such a small woman could have a back large enough for half the town talk about her behind it."

"How much can some paint cost?" Joar snorted, and started feeling the pockets of his shorts with an optimism that really was admirable, because there were kangaroos that had some money in their pouches more often than he did

A while ago, a friend recommended Backman's A Man Called Ove to me, saying that he had really enjoyed it. But I wasn't enamored with that book either. I guess I am the wrong audience for Backman's books, his characters and plots are not on my wavelength. I actually had Backman's Anxious People on my big stack of books To Be Read; but now I think I will just donate it to the library booksale unread.