My Friends

My Friends by Fredrik Backman (2025)

Louisa is turning eighteen and has been in foster care for almost all of her life. Her very best (and only) friend, Fish, had to leave foster care when she turned 18, and she has died, leaving Louisa untethered. Her only recourse is art. Especially that of an artist using the name C. Jat, who has a painting he had made as a teenager that became famous, called "The One of the Sea." She has carried a postcard photo of that painting for years, and she is determined to see it in person. What she does not expect is that by sneaking into the venue where the painting is up for auction, she has changed her life. First, she's thrown out of the venue and ends up meeting a homeless man behind a church. But the man is not homeless after all, and when his anxiety-filled friend tries to find Louisa later, an adventure begins, with a tapdance of personalities.

Louisa learns the history of the painting created 25 years before, and much more. Abusive home lives of some of the people in that history don't kill the joy that the friends of the artist feel when they are together. I felt tension, needing to see how things worked out 25 years ago, and wondering how things would turn out in the present/future. This is a great story with some philosophy added for dessert.