ARC Review: Of Art and Friendships

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Publication Date: May 6, 2024

Summary from Netgalley:

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

ARC provided by Atria Books via Netgalley for an honest review.

Confession:

This was quite the book that I found to be an interesting and a satisfying read. This is only the second book by this author that I have read and while I liked them both I’m not sure that these books are quite for me. I did enjoy the writing style and I liked and connected with many of the characters, but the story itself just never really engaged me.

There are many characters and two timelines in this story. I liked Louise, the young adult who we meet at the start of the story. You get right from the start that she has endured quite a lot in her young life, but she has survived mostly because of a close friendship and because of art. Louise often added some much needed comedic relief in her attitudes and comments, as only a seventeen year old can do. Ted is the older gentleman who befriends Louise and tells the tale of the four friends and the artist behind the painting that means so much to her. Ted is a little bit harder to relate to, but he also has had a rough childhood and is able to connect to Louise on a different level than most adults could.

There are two parts to this story, the present where Louise and Ted meet and go on a journey together, and then the past where the story of the four friends is being told and the summer when the painting was created. I found the friend’s story to be a more interesting and compelling one than the present day story. Although the friends encounter much hardship, brutality and experience true grief that summer, there is a lot of joy and happiness too in their friendship and love for each other.

I did struggle a little bit with the writing style at the start of the story, it was almost a kind of stream of consciousness, but I eventually found myself appreciating it by the end of the book. This author really has a nice way of writing and describing the world he has created. I almost believed that the artwork the story centers around was a real painting, and I was hoping that someday I would get to see it as well. I was also expecting the end to the friend’s story to be as tragic and emotional as the rest of it had been, but it ended up being a happy one.

If you are a fan of this author’s work than I am positive that you will find this one just as wonderful. I think that non fans will enjoy it too, especially if you like stories of love, found family and the endurance of childhood friendships.