My Friends, by Frederik Backman (Marble Sky Corporation, 390 pp, 2023, ages 16 and up, $19 PB)
A very unusual read from a Swedish author that might take you halfway through before you identify with the characters but the rest of the book is well worth it: your reading speed will accelerate and along the way you will guess at what happens - sometimes you will be wrong, though sometimes you will be right.
A group of 14-year-olds who are as tight as any friends (and any age) can be which astonished me, a senior citizen who tried to remember the summer when I was 14. Three boys and a girl (eventually) and how they spend their summer days together (sometimes pilfering, but always supporting each other).
Other major characters in the book are the pier (though I would call it a dock) and the painting of three friends sitting on the end of the dock, the debut work of one whose name is revealed only near the end.
The prolific author of other books on my Must-Read list, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (with a dog on the cover) and Beartown, Frederik Backman has a very unusual style of writing. Like many others, he tells his story by going back and forth over 25 years but he also drops in a sentence here and there that are simply unforgettable gems - and these increase with frequency as the story progresses.
I only wish a reading guide had been included with questions for book clubs but, no doubt, this book will be studied for a long time.
