My Friends: A Novel

My Friends: A Novel by Fredrik Backman

A homeless girl breaks into an art auction to go spread some graffiti and admire a painting she loves in person. She runs away from guards and ends up crashing into homeless guy. The homeless guy befriends her and helps her escape. She later learns that this was not a homeless man, but in fact the famous painter of the painting she admired. They have mutual admiration and then part ways. That night, the artist dies. Before dying, the artist said he wanted his famous painting to go to the girl. (He and his friend had purchased it back at the auction, after selling everything the artist had.) The girl has trouble grasping this. She ended up chasing after the friend and ended up on the train with him. On the train ride, they share each other's history. She learns the history of the painting and the friends involved. They came from a rough, working-class town. They had various struggles and experiences as they grew up. The "bully" ended up pushing the artist to do his work. The "teacher" was the one that supported the artist at the end of his life. There was violence, death and other issues. Eventually the artist was able to paint his works and escape the town.

They have some adventures on the train. They try to separate, get in fights with others and think they lost the painting and the ashes. They eventually get them back. They struggle with what to do with it. They hook up with some people remaining in the hometown and finally decide to execute a "reverse heist" and sneak into a hometown museum to hang the painting there for all to see.

The book slowly develops the characters through the history and flashbacks. It is easy to relate to the lives of the characters, even if their experiences feel very different.

Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel

In a remote seaside location in Puget Sound, an old lady has a part time job of cleaning the local aquarium. She befriends an octopus that she finds stuck in a power cord. This animal has a habit of sneaking out of its tank to go exploring. (We also get to hear some thoughts from the Octopus's point of view.) She is currently living alone, and still has not got over the mysterious death of her son many years ago.

Meanwhile, in California, a young man that never knew his father (and barely knew his mother) stumbles across an old picture of his mom with another guy. She thinks this might be his father. He traces him to the small town in Washington state, and heads up there. The airline loses his luggage (it ends up traveling all over the world), and he ends up buying a camper from somebody he met and uses it to drive from Seattle up to the small town. In the small town, he befriends the old man that runs the grocery store, and is able to live in the camper on his lot.

Back in the town, the old lady sprains her ankle. The young man takes over her job cleaning the aquarium. The lady comes back in to see how the aquarium is doing (and see the octopus.) 

The characters in the book develop powerful relationships with each other. The octopus also has his personality and works to help the humans in their relationships - sometimes doing things that the humans are unable to do themselves. The octopus knows the answers that the humans are looking for before the humans do. They all are much better with each other than alone.

This Time Tomorrow: A Novel

A girl's father is dying on her 40th birthday. Her mother had abandoned her when she was young, leaving her to be permissively raised by her father. She has not had much to do with other people in her life (other than her best friend), and has even turned down a marriage proposal. Her father was a science fiction writer, known for his time travel book.

She is saddened by the passing of her father and finds herself revisiting her past. She inhabits her teenage self in this odd way of reliving life with some future experiences intact. She knows that she is a future self, but still has the feelings (such as being attracted to teenage boys) of her youth. The novel goes through a "groundhog day" cycle, with her reliving the same time period over and over, and seeing what changes it causes in her future life. She finds herself married with kids and her dad quits smoking, yet he still dies. 

Finally she accepts the past and goes on with her life. Time travel plays a key role in the store, yet it does not feel like a science fiction book.