Ponder: My Friends

 My Friends ©2025 by Fredrik Backman is a story about the lives of four teenage friends who spent a summer of laughter together, despite the depressing home situation of each. Three are immortalized in a painting depicting three figures sitting on the edge of a pier, a painting which sells for an exorbitant sum of money. The painting was created by the fourth in their group. I was looking forward to enjoying this book since I read A Man Called Ove, also by Fredrick Bachman which I rated 5 stars in my 10/31/17 post reviewing it. Furthermore, 37800 readers on Amazon rated My Friends 4.6 stars and 253,400 readers on Goodreads rate it 4.4 stars. Despite these accolades, I was very disappointed in My Friends. I rate My Friends only 2 stars. To minimize the effort I put into the review for a book I rated so poorly, I present these AI summaries of the characters within. 

Louisa is the 17-year-old artist protagonist the novel, who is on the run from her foster home after her best friend, Fish, dies. She is creative, rebellious, and carries a postcard of a famous painting called "The One of the Sea," which becomes a central symbol of the book as she meets the reclusive artist behind it. The story intertwines her present-day journey with the past lives of the four teenagers who were the subjects of the painting.

The four teenagers associated with the painting:

• Joar is the group's "muscle and heart," a boy shaped by violence who is fiercely loyal to his friends
• Ted is one of four childhood friends who bond over art. He becomes a teacher, but his life takes a turn after an incident at school. He then becomes a friend and father figure to Louisa, a young artist, and is involved in the book's main storyline about art, friendship, and loss.
• Ali is a character who leaves the friend group because her father is in debt. She later becomes a skilled surfer; her story contributes to the themes of trauma and healing explored in the novel.
• The artist is the creator of the iconic painting "The One of the Sea". He is referred to "the artist" throughout and only near the end is his name revealed.

Scenes of laughter amidst teenage loyalty and bonding abound and are enjoyable. But the heart breaking situation of each of these characters seems to have an overriding air of dystopia for me. Violence, drug abuse, alcoholism, emotional abuse, bullying, and poverty to me were too pervasive to be neutralized by a summer's worth of escapist frivolity and mischief.

The book has two main timelines: present day Luisa, recently aging out of a foster home and the summer about twenty years ago shared by teenagers Joar, Ted, Ali and the artist. The two timelines intertwine as an adult Ted is telling Louis the story of that summer. The poignant theme of friendship and loyalty is to be commended, but I struggled with all the misfortunes above which these attributes were to rise. To me the glow of good triumphing over evil was buried under the darkness of the dystopian lives when those friends were not in each other's company. There were several twists in the book where the reader was led to believe something dire had occurred. The later revelation of the true situation made me feel the author was being cruel to the readers in misleading them.

I really forced myself to read the final third of this book. That says something for the author's skill in having me bond with the characters. I wanted to know how lives turned out, even though it was painful for me to doggedly persist in reading this novel to the very end. The psychological downers for me in My Friends seem in keeping with my erratic relationship with this author. I'd forgotten I had also read Anxious People by Fredrick Bachman and sadly rated it only 1 star in my 7/7/21 post reviewing it. Feeling angst when I read is not a desirable emotion for me. Feeling suspense is acceptable but not within a pervasive atmosphere of hopeless acceptance. Cope without hope is not read-worthy. 

 

★★☆☆☆ Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it

Ponder: The Life Impossible

The Life Impossible ©2025 is the second book I have read by Matt Haig. In my post for 7/6/21, I reviewed and rated Haig's Midnight Library ©2020 only two stars. But everybody deserves a second chance, right? Wrong! I also rate The Life Impossible only two stars, which for me, translates to, "Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it". So what were those redeeming features?

1. The main character of the story, Grace, is a retired math teacher in her seventies. The novel has several mathematical references and terms such as the Fibonacci sequence, positive and negative numbers, some calculus terms, etc. I could relate to Grace's age, retired status, and technical background.
   
   
2. I learned a new vocabulary term, anhedonia which is defined as the inability to experience pleasure from activities that were once enjoyable.
   
   
3. The premise was interesting and had promise. Grace was left a house on an island by Christina, a previous teaching colleague of hers. She lived alone and had no other ties so why not explore this option, adding an experiment to her now mundane life? And how did Christina die or did she just disappear or perhaps go into hiding?
   
   
4. There were passages that prompted deeper thought. This particular one resonated with me as I ponder my decluttering efforts. Here is one example passage from early on in the book:
   

   The word "era" entered my mind and did not leave. I thought about how you entered a new one [era]. ... How you need to create a distinct break with what has gone before. In geology it is often after an extinction, isn't it? The Mesozoic Era ended with the mass death of the dinosaurs via a meteor. I was wondering if I was starting a new era or if I was taking too much with me. This is the challenge of life, isn't it? Moving forward without annihilating what has gone before.

The novel seemed as if the author was looking for opportunities to insert pithy phrases rahter than tell story. Disco dances, song titles, music groups were often listed throughout an entire paragraph to generate a feeling. Not knowing what many of them were left me bored, missing the sensation I was meant to feel, and merely skimming the paragraphs. The plot was random. I will admit the title was appropriate. Not to reveal any spoilers, but where else but in an impossible life on a unique island can you gather together, ecology rants, species preservation, dishonest politicians, greedy real estate developers, scuba diving, aliens, glowing light, other planets, mind reading, telekinesis, grief, guilt, gambling, goats, lobsters, snakes, cormorants, and flamingos? I will not be seeking out other books by this other, even with his accolade of being a New York Times best seller. For me The Life Impossible was

★★☆☆☆ Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it

SoCal Visit to Friends

Frank and I traveled to Southern California Tuesday, October 28th through Friday, October 31st to visit our friends John & Marita who had downsized about two years ago. They'd relocated from the town of Pleasanton, adjacent to our town of Livermore, to a smaller house in Laguna Niguel. Although we zoom with them every two weeks, we still knew we would enjoy a person-to-person get together. We UBER'd to the Oakland airport, a 28.43 mile trip which took 34 minutes. Security was not backed up and went as well as could be expected — except for a small glitch with me. I set off the metal detecters ...whah, whah, whah... !
 

Metal in your body, asked the agent?     No, that is my husband, not me.

Cell phone in the bin?     Yup, not the culprit. 

Could it be my underwire bra?     Not likely.

Anything in your pockets ma'am? I don't think so... Aha!

I thought these candy wrappers were cellophane, but apparently the foil from three of these little Werther's Original candies was enough to set off the system. Live and learn. Frank with his hip replacement filed through without any fuss. It was me with my candies that upset the apple cart. Of course one of my powder medications had to be pulled side and scanned, lest it be an explosive, but I was expecting that. It happens every time I travel.

After the excitement and once we were at our gate, we learned that our Southwest Airlines flight from OAK (Oakland) to SNA (Orange County) was only 75% full. We had the luxury of an empty seat between us for the 1½ hours of air time. 

Flight #4035 actually took off a bit early and we arrived early. Interesting enough, the UBER pickup point at SNA is on the third floor of the parking garage and into curbside. Within minutes we had a ride, though. Our UBER trip to our hotel from the airport was 21.41 miles and took 35 minutes. So far our trip was smooth sailing. Our timing had been lucky. Our driver told us that there had been a recent fatal motorcycle crash on the southbound 405 Freeway near Irvine Spectrum that very morning, resulted in lane closures and significant traffic delays. He said the route we would have taken earlier in the day had been closed for four hours. We were fortunate to have missed it.

Our hotel was the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton, chosen for its proximity to John & Marita's home. We had a room with two queen beds. Room 336 was tucked away in inner corner of the hotel and we had an angled view of the pool. John joked that we had a room with an ocean view. I also picked this place because, beside the free breakfast, the lobby had a pantry where we could purchase snacks to take back to our room anytime. Yes, we did cave and get Tate's chocolate chip cookies and Lays potato chips each night.

John picked us up in his new all electric car and drove us to his house 4.5 miles and about 10 minutes away. Their small economy sized car accommodated Frank and me, our luggage, and Frank's rollator with ease. John and Marita had done a lot of updates to the one-story home. One update was a charging station in the garage for their all-electric car. Frank and I had no checked luggage this trip, only carry-ons. This jaunt was our first time traveling this light and it was great. Inside the one-story, three bedroom home was bright and airy with almost an entire wall of sliding doors out to the backyard. Marita had heated a HUGE Costco Chicken Pot Pie; as soon as we entered the house we inhaled the luscious aroma. HUGE is really big. That pot pie fed four adults for both Tuesday and Thursday nights. Marita had steamed a side of fresh broccoli to go with it each time. We sat and relaxed in pleasant conversation with no plan other than to relax and soak in each other's company.

We were to enjoy their home and hospitality Tuesday evening followed by Wednesday/Thursday days. The covered back patio extend about 20 feet or so and then the yard transitioned to a steep incline, beautifully landscaped and extending far up the hill. We basked in the sunny, balmy, temperate weather outside as we sat on that patio. As we were relaxing in quiet conversation and catching up, I spotted a coyote meandering along the ridge line of the neighbor's yard. As he was winding his way downhill, we watched in subdued wonder. We did agree though, that if he got too much closer we would go indoors; but we did not have to. 

One consequence of all those lovely hills was that cellphone reception was tricky. We would need to alter settings on our cell phones to accept calls via Wi-Fi. After a fair amount of Googling, John finally found detailed instructions on setting this configuration for our iPhone 16s. Apparently there was a radio button acknowledging our acceptance of some random "terms"; the button was sufficiently small and camouflaged that we missed clicking it multiple times. That's OK. Solving the problem was part of Wednesday afternoon's "entertainment" for a bunch of nerds. Marita had gone to a knitting class so this cell phone exercise kept us amused in her absence. We also watched a movie.

We purposely chose a movie we'd all seen so that talking during it would not be a problem. I had recalled getting an email noting that The Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie was going away from Prime on October 31st. Afterwards, although you probably could stream it from elsewhere, you would have to pay to rent to watch. Streaming the 2015 movie The Man from U.N.C.L.E., rated 7.2 on IMDb, was every bit as enjoyable to me as the first and second times I have watched it. Snatching a few zzzz's during the movie worked out well for John, Frank, and me at various points throughout. We joked that we thought when Marita returned we should stage a scene with all three of us napping while the TV blared something obnoxious. The proposal was an appealing idea, but we did not deploy it.

Another movie we watched, this time with Marita, was the 2010 movie Knight and Day rated 6.3 on IMDb but really enjoyable. John told us you don't have to follow the plot. The plot is just a vehicle to get you from one action scene to another with no need to understand or anticipate. He was right. Knight and Day, starring Cruise and Cameron Diaz, was a fun, tongue-in-cheek romp, with non-stop action that avoided being gorily violent. Knight and Day was also pleasantly sprinkled with a little risqué sexiness.

Our son, Dan, happened to be in the area for business and he was able to get together with John & Marita and Frank & me for dinner Wednesday night. Since Dan used to live in the area, he suggested a good Mexican restaurant Avila's El Ranchito in Foothill Ranch, CA. The food was very, very good. Dan's personality is such that he was able to fit right in with our group of four; the conversation and laughing were pretty non-stop.

Dan ordered a large margarita not realizing just how LARGE, "large" really was. Seeing it next to his sunglasses for calibration, that margarita was pretty much close to the size of Dan's head! After dinner Dan drove us back to our hotel before going to his. We had the opportunity for a brief visit with him during the half-hour drive to our hotel. Seeing him during this trip was a happy happenstance.

On Thursday we played some games. Our version of Rummikub has six additional bonus joker tiles beyond the standard version. I brought those tiles with me so we could add them in and use them in our own Chambers-personalized 2-D rules for crossword type Rummikub. This version with the bonus jokers is available exclusively from Target. We played SEQUENCE in person as the game was designed. Every other week we play with John & Marita over a zoom call with a specially marked playing board and double the number of card decks. Frank wants it pointed out that when we played SKYJO, he came in first.

While the chicken pot pie was warming in the oven we put together a 300-piece version of a Charles Wysocki puzzle named Mr. Swallowbark, a broom maker. After dinner we sat around and chatted a bit more before we said our goodbyes and John drove us back to our hotel. Our in-person visit was fantastic. It was an enjoyable cherry on top of the treat of having zoom calls every other Monday with awesome friends.

The next morning, Frank and I took an UBER to the airport. Our UBER driver for our return to the airport on Friday told us that he himself had been stuck in that backup for 1½ hours with a passenger. We learned that the UBER stated fare remains the stated fare, and there is no adjustment for traffic delays no matter how extensive. Our curbside drop off at SNA went smoothly and we got to our gate in plenty of time. I expected there to be lots of costumes since we were traveling on Halloween. There were a fair number of folks dressed in black and orange, but there were very few costumes. Our stewardess wore ghost earrings. One last perk of this trip... our flight had 23 empty seats so once again Frank and I had a vacant seat between us. SWA Flight 4274 also took off early and landed early! The travel gods continued to smile on us, even all the way back to our home in Livermore. The 28 mile, 52 minute UBER ride was also uneventful. Glad we went and also glad to be home!