My Friends – Fredrik Backman
This may be the end of the road for me and Fredrik Backman.
I’ve read six of his novels now — loved one, liked two others and powered through the rest in hopes of rediscovering what once felt fresh in his storytelling. But “My Friends” felt more like a test of patience than a rewarding read.
The premise at least had promise. A novel about art, found family and grief — all themes I’m typically drawn to — but “My Friends” never quite found its rhythm. Part of the problem is Louisa, a teenage girl who becomes obsessed with a world-renowned painting that features three tiny figures on a pier.
She's orphaned, artistic and broken, the kind of character who should command empathy, but instead she’s written with such blunt immaturity that she quickly wears thin. We’re told to root for her, but the writing rarely gives us a reason to.
The humor is baffling. By 37%, I had to double-check if this was marketed as YA, because the fart, poop and diarrhea jokes are so frequent I thought, “Surely this can’t be aimed at adults.”
It’s not YA, but even if it were, that wouldn’t excuse the lack of nuance in the writing or the paper-thin characterizations. Backman seems to mistake repetition for resonance and leans hard into sentimentality that feels more like emotional manipulation played as earnestness.
The heart of the book — the painting and the friends it depicts — should be where the story comes alive. Ted, Joar, Ali and KimKim are introduced as a group of damaged teens who bond one fateful summer. Each comes with a backstory clearly intended to signal depth: Ted, a closeted gay teacher grieving unrequited love; Joar, haunted by domestic violence; Ali, the tomboy everyone loves but no one really knows; KimKim, the tortured artist. However, these folks didn’t come across as fully-fleshed characters, rather only archetypes.
Of the group, only Ted stood out. His story — quiet and sad — deserved a better novel. He’s the one character I genuinely cared about, and the one whose life and choices felt lived-in. But even he gets dragged down by the book’s tonal inconsistencies, especially when paired with Louisa, who flattens nearly every scene she’s in.
To be fair, the second half of the novel is significantly stronger than the first. If you’re connecting with the tone and characters early on, you’re likely in for a treat. If you’re not — if, like me, you spend the first few hours wondering if it’s you or the book — then you have to decide how much time you’re willing to give it.
Backman eventually sheds the adolescent humor and finally taps into the more universally human themes he’s capable of executing well. The final third, in particular, gestures toward the story I think he was trying to tell: one about the beauty of art as resistance, the tenacity of people society overlooks and the complicated ways we survive.
However, just as the author finds his stride he undercuts it with even more madcap sequences and overwrought declarations of love and loyalty. Seriously, these characters insist they love each other every few pages, but their actions rarely reflect that. It feels very, very performative.
Maybe that’s my biggest issue: “My Friends” often feels like it’s trying very hard to be profound. Like it’s auditioning for an emotional response rather than earning it. There are moments, Backman always has a few, where a single line cuts through the noise and makes you stop. Unfortunately, these ideas are buried in a story that feels chaotic and bloated, trying to juggle too many themes without characters that can hold them together.
I love books about art. I’m drawn to stories about found family and grief and the messy, nonlinear paths of healing. I even appreciate a little chaos when it serves a purpose. But this novel felt like a scattershot of ideas, ageist and classist in places it doesn’t seem to recognize and oddly flippant about trauma and too reliant on gimmicks. That’s what made it frustrating. Not that it was bad, but that it was almost something more and that I know Backman is capable of better.
Marin Ireland’s audiobook narration was steady and committed, but much like the material itself, a bit one-note. I don’t fault her for that — it often felt like she was giving the text everything it had to give, and in doing so, maybe just amplified some of its weaker spots.
Backman has a massive, devoted readership, and I’m not here to argue that away. However, loving an author doesn’t mean you have to love everything they write. If anything, honest critique is the better form of respect. This one missed the mark for me, and I think I’ve finally accepted that I don’t need to keep coming back hoping next time will be different.
Also — and I can’t stress this enough — enough with the fart jokes.
Rating (story): 2.5/5 stars
Rating (narration): 3/5 stars
Format: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: May 24 – May 29, 2025
Multi-tasking: Good to go, but only after the first few chapters when you understand who the characters are. Since I found this to be a slog, audio is definitely the way to work your way through this.
