Author: Fredrik Backman
Published: May 6, 2025 by Atria Books
Format: Kindle, Hardcover 436 Pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Blurb: 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 a wide expanse of sea. But Louisa, soon to be eighteen years old and an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise. She is determined to find out the story behind these three enigmatic figures.
More than two decades before, 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 every morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that, after a chance encounter in an alleyway, will unexpectedly be placed into Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to discover how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more anxious she becomes about what she'll find. Louisa's complicated life is proof that happy endings are sometimes possible, but they don't always take the form we expect them to.
My Opinion: This is not a book you simply read, it’s one you endure, absorb, and carry with you long after the final page. The first chapters punch you in the heart so forcefully, it’s almost daring readers to continue. Yet those who continue will discover a master storyteller who weaves pain and longing into every moment.
Backman doesn’t write characters. He conjures souls. Louisa, the orphaned teen searching for belonging, holds the narrative in a fragile, fierce, and illuminating way. Her grief over Fish’s death lingers on every page. She’s forged herself a backstory to fill the void, and her desperation to avoid another foster home is palpable. Ted, drawn into her orbit, is both shaken and transformed. And then there’s the painter who cracks the veneer between art and truth, and is held tightly by those who believe in him.
What begins with a postcard and the quest for a painting becomes an emotional scavenger hunt through human suffering, reluctant hope, and the weight of memory. Backman’s style demands focus; questions are asked with no promise of immediate answers. But the journey between question and resolution is where the reader truly lives. Reaching for hope, but knowing that is not an option.
The writing is prophetic, often circling back to earlier seeds planted quietly between pages. Just when you think Ted and the others might catch a break, Backman holds back. There is no easy redemption, no tidy conclusion; only truth that is raw, devastating, and, at times, gorgeous.
Louisa injects chaos into Ted’s life, almost hilariously so. And while 40 absolutely isn’t “old,” she threatens to age him decades by sheer emotional force alone. Their dynamic adds a flicker of light in an otherwise dark tale.
I had to walk away from this book for a short time. Not because I didn’t love it, but because it created a sadness and wouldn’t let me go. Yet when I returned, it greeted me with wisdom I hadn’t seen before and proof that the most painful stories often require courage to finish.
As I reached the final pages, I found myself stalling. I didn’t want to say goodbye. And then, in a bittersweet twist, Louisa becomes someone else’s postcard. That full-circle moment. That’s where the tears come. If you reach the end and don’t feel it in your bones, I’m not sure you’re fully human.
A novel that will hurt you. It will haunt you. And you’ll love it for that.
More than two decades before, 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 every morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that, after a chance encounter in an alleyway, will unexpectedly be placed into Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to discover how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more anxious she becomes about what she'll find. Louisa's complicated life is proof that happy endings are sometimes possible, but they don't always take the form we expect them to.
My Opinion: This is not a book you simply read, it’s one you endure, absorb, and carry with you long after the final page. The first chapters punch you in the heart so forcefully, it’s almost daring readers to continue. Yet those who continue will discover a master storyteller who weaves pain and longing into every moment.
Backman doesn’t write characters. He conjures souls. Louisa, the orphaned teen searching for belonging, holds the narrative in a fragile, fierce, and illuminating way. Her grief over Fish’s death lingers on every page. She’s forged herself a backstory to fill the void, and her desperation to avoid another foster home is palpable. Ted, drawn into her orbit, is both shaken and transformed. And then there’s the painter who cracks the veneer between art and truth, and is held tightly by those who believe in him.
What begins with a postcard and the quest for a painting becomes an emotional scavenger hunt through human suffering, reluctant hope, and the weight of memory. Backman’s style demands focus; questions are asked with no promise of immediate answers. But the journey between question and resolution is where the reader truly lives. Reaching for hope, but knowing that is not an option.
The writing is prophetic, often circling back to earlier seeds planted quietly between pages. Just when you think Ted and the others might catch a break, Backman holds back. There is no easy redemption, no tidy conclusion; only truth that is raw, devastating, and, at times, gorgeous.
Louisa injects chaos into Ted’s life, almost hilariously so. And while 40 absolutely isn’t “old,” she threatens to age him decades by sheer emotional force alone. Their dynamic adds a flicker of light in an otherwise dark tale.
I had to walk away from this book for a short time. Not because I didn’t love it, but because it created a sadness and wouldn’t let me go. Yet when I returned, it greeted me with wisdom I hadn’t seen before and proof that the most painful stories often require courage to finish.
As I reached the final pages, I found myself stalling. I didn’t want to say goodbye. And then, in a bittersweet twist, Louisa becomes someone else’s postcard. That full-circle moment. That’s where the tears come. If you reach the end and don’t feel it in your bones, I’m not sure you’re fully human.
A novel that will hurt you. It will haunt you. And you’ll love it for that.
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