My Friends by Fredrik Backman is a contemporary coming-of-age novel told through a shifting third-person perspective. The novel moves fluidly between past and present, gradually revealing the intertwined lives of four childhood friends—Ted, Joar, Ali, and the future artist known as C. Jat—and the young woman, Louisa, who inherits their story decades later. Blending mystery, humor, and drama, the novel follows the friends’ formative summer, the buried griefs that shaped their adult lives, and Louisa’s unexpected role in completing their unfinished narrative. Backman explores themes of chosen family, the long aftershocks of violence, the transformative power of art, and the ways grief and love echo across generations.
