Fredrik Backman’s My Friends is the kind of book that doesn’t just move you, it reaches in and quietly rearranges something in you. It’s a story about grief and friendship, about childhood trauma and adult love, about the brutal beauty of being human.
Through characters like Louisa, Ted, Fish and the artist, Backman gives voice to what so many people carry quietly: the fear of being forgotten, the ache of being misunderstood, the desperate hope that we might matter to someone, somewhere. He writes children with broken pasts and adults trying to outrun their ghosts, and he does it with tenderness, rage, humour, and astonishing insight.
There are lines in this book that made me stop breathing. Some pages feel like a conversation with the part of you that’s never healed. Others feel like a lifeline thrown straight into the storm.
What struck me most was how Backman explores the idea that the most dangerous place isn’t a dark alley—it’s inside us. And still, despite all the pain, this book is full of love. Fierce, defiant, protective love. Love that survives overdose, violence, cruelty and loss.
By the end, you realise My Friends isn’t about one person. It’s about all of us. The ones who draw strength from art, or superheroes, or tiny fish sketched on gallery walls. It’s about the friends who make it possible to survive the parts of life that feel unsurvivable.
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