My Friends is Backman doing the thing he does — short chapters, a narrator who talks directly to you, and a story about people with nothing who build something anyway. It won the Goodreads Choice Award for fiction in 2025 and it is one of the better book club picks of that year.
It is also considerably sadder than the cover suggests. Content notes below.
The book at a glance
| Author | Fredrik Backman, translated from Swedish by Neil Smith |
| Published | Atria, May 2025 |
| Length | 448 pages |
| Genre | Literary fiction, coming of age |
| Recognition | Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fiction 2025; number one Indie Next pick; number one New York Times bestseller |
The premise, spoiler-free
Louisa is a teenager with a hard history and not much to lose, and she is obsessed with a famous painting called The One of the Sea. A chance encounter with its dying creator leaves her holding it, and sends her across the country to find out where it came from.
Twenty-five years earlier, four teenagers who had nowhere else to go spent one summer on an abandoned pier. That summer is what is inside the painting.
The novel alternates between the two.
Content notes for the host
Attempted suicide, suicidal ideation and self-harm; domestic abuse; rape and sexual assault mentioned; homophobia; bullying; foster care; alcoholism; depression, anxiety and panic attacks; grief.
Backman writes these with warmth rather than bleakness, but the list is long and a host should say so.
Discussion questions
To open
- One sentence each: what is this book about?
- Rate it out of five, numbers only.
- Which timeline did you want to be in? Notice how the room splits — it usually does.
The four on the pier
- What does each of the four get from the group that they cannot get anywhere else? Answer for each one.
- The pier is abandoned and it is theirs. What does having a place do for teenagers who have no place?
- Is the friendship idealized? Backman is often accused of sentimentality. Is that fair here?
- Which of the four does the book understand best? Which does it let off easiest?
Louisa
- Louisa is looking for the origin of a painting. What is she actually looking for?
- What does she have in common with the teenagers from twenty-five years ago, and where is she different?
- Does the novel need Louisa, or could the pier story stand alone? Argue both.
Art
- The painting is famous and its subject is four unimportant kids. What is Backman saying about who gets preserved?
- Who does The One of the Sea belong to — the artist, the subjects, the owner, the person who understands it?
- What can a painting hold that a story cannot? The novel is a story about a painting, so it is making a claim here.
Class and structure
- These are poor kids in a small town with limited options. How much of what happens to them is character and how much is circumstance?
- Backman’s narrator addresses the reader directly and often states the theme out loud. Does that intimacy work for you, or would you rather be trusted to find it?
- The chapters are very short and the timelines alternate frequently. What does that rhythm do to the reading experience?
To close
- What does this book think friendship is for?
- Has your rating moved?
- Best line — one each.
What your group will argue about
Sentimentality. The permanent Backman argument. Some readers find him the most emotionally honest popular novelist working; others find the emotion applied rather than earned. Question fifteen puts it on the table directly.
The length. 448 pages with very short chapters, and a fair number of readers feel the middle third could lose eighty pages. Others say the accumulation is the point.
Louisa versus the pier. Almost every group has a clear majority for one timeline, and the minority will feel strongly.
If your group liked this
Beartown is Backman’s strongest book and the closest in subject — a small town, teenagers, class, and something terrible. A Man Called Ove if the group has somehow not read it. Beyond Backman: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow for friendship across decades and making things together, and Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful.
Hosting it
448 pages but short chapters, so it reads fast. Four to five weeks.
Worth noting for the discussion: this is a translation. If someone in your group reads Swedish, ask them about it. Otherwise it is still worth asking what a translated novel is — how much of the voice you are responding to is Backman and how much is Neil Smith.
The questions that work for any novel are in book club questions for any novel; how to host a book club covers the evening itself.
Our book review notepad gives you a page per book if you keep a club record, and the rest is in bookish accessories and reading journals.