My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

Because what he really wants to know is: “How the hell do all the rest of you cope?”

Once she got invited to a birthday party, by mistake, of course, someone’s mom had asked all the girls in the class without checking if they were all the same.

The most dangerous creature on the planet is, and has always been, a young man. And the worst thing about a young man? That until very recently he was just a boy. No one gets any warning when he stops being one.

The good days were never good, they were a lie, they never lasted. There were just enough of them for his mom to believe that the bad ones were somehow her fault.

he cheered. He jumped up and down on the pier and just screamed out loud with joy. How many reasons do you get to do that in an entire life?

“It might sound like an unhappy ending, but only if you forget how many times during this story we’ve told you that someone laughed. How many really good nows is that? How many people ever have more?”