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My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

A painting’s small figures open a larger story

Regular price $46.20 USD
Regular price $48.64 USD Sale price $46.20 USD
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Hardcover New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A painting’s small figures open a larger story

Three barely noticed figures in a famous painting become the starting point for Louisa’s search into its origins. The trail leads back twenty-five years, to a seaside town where teenagers retreat to an abandoned pier, sharing jokes and secrets while facing difficult home lives. The story links their summer refuge and the artwork that emerges from it with Louisa’s present-day journey across the country, as she investigates the painting’s history and considers its future. Friendship, art, and the ways people find connection amid hardship are woven through these two strands.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in stories about friendship formed in adolescence and carried across time.
  • For readers drawn to fiction that connects an artwork’s origins with a present-day search.
  • For readers who enjoy stories set partly in a seaside town and partly on a cross-country journey.

Themes

Friendship and belongingArt and its originsAdolescent hardshipMemory and connection

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"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"--
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