My Friends by Fredrik Backman

 genre: contemporary fiction

The painting Louisa finds at the museum, the one of the sea, isn't just a painting.  It's a encapsulation of one perfect day - and artist knows this because he was there.  But for Louisa to meet the artist would take the kind of twist of fate that can only happen when your eyes know beauty when they see it and your heart has been broken enough to know that life is pain.  But the story of Louisa and the painting is only one thread in this story where past and present are so mixed together that we as readers realize it't not really the order in which life happened that's important - it's who we lived it with.  This is a story of finding your people and how your people save you.  In all the ways.  

During the last fourth of this book I had tears in my eyes twice, I was so touched by the tenderness of it.  What is so painfully beautiful about this book is that the heartbreak and the trauma and the actual horror that some of these characters live through somehow manages to stay just off center stage enough that instead of absolutely hating how horrible life can be, the bright light of how people can surprise you makes the story almost glow.  This is a story about how there are people who want to break people and there are people who want to keep people put together and that people can actually shift from one to the other if only there is enough safe space to allow it.  It's a well written, powerful and funny story, even with the desperate pain you feel for children that deserve better than what they get.  I also loved how it is an homage to art and the way that creative pursuits have a value beyond the product - that making something beautiful or SEEING something beautiful can literally change everything.