I loved this book. It’s the first one I’ve read by Mr. Backman, but not the last. That’s for sure. It’s like John Irving, Wally Lamb, David Mitchel, Jennifer Egan, Michael Chabon, Hernan Diaz–if I see them on a shelf, I buy them. Which reminds me of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” by Junot Diaz, and I excitedly looked it up as that would be a good comp, but it was from 2007. Bummer.

Unfortunately, I found My Friends mildly depressing, pretty much from the beginning, because it was so fucking good and I was envious, which is a sin. I know, and I tried to not be that way, and to just enjoy it, but it’s like, Shit! That idea’s gone. Or Can’t write that now. And Why couldn’t I have thought of that? Time after time, after time. It was exhausting. The Envy.

There was so much that was cool about this book, I don’t even know where to start. Maybe, the structure, the play with time and how many chapters started with something like, “25 years later,” or “25 years before,” and how the story advanced as a story told by Ted to the main character, Luisa, on a train, traveling to the ocean. I loved how chapters would be chopped in half and you’re thinking WTF and then there’s a chapter of why this was that way, and then you get back to the WTF happened answer. I mean, aren’t there rules against that?

Obviously, no, there aren’t. So, this was a good lesson. It doesn’t necessarily need to be linear, although this largely was as both storylines advanced linearly, in parallel, kind of. This is my favorite kind of book. The kind that make you laugh and cry. Several times. The humor at times was so subtle that it was funnier than if it had not been. Sly, witty, tricky humor, it was. And the way the secondary character, the reason for the story, “the artist,” was only known as “the artist,” throughout, except at the end. Every time a scene came up with “the artist,” it made me smile because it was “the artist.” How funny is that?

Enduring friendship. This is a good comp for Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and I think, might be for me, other than it’s too good/he’s too big, which can be a bad thing in a query letter. Let’s see; 17yo girl (check), road trip (check–kind of–train trip), underlying theme of platonic love/friendship (amen, brother), makes you laugh and cry (hopefully), two stories in two different time periods (double-check), mildly erotic and use of foul language (imagine annoying buzzer/not really). So, five out of six. I’d better keep reading because of #6.

The third thing I like. Is it the third? Well, whatever, what I liked, and what I tried to do in The Song of Songs is connecting a lot of things, some little, some big, to other parts of the story all the way through to the end. Pretty much like “Chekov’s gun.” Like, a phone number written down that doesn’t seem important, until it is, or a phone call answered 25 years later. It’s all so beautiful, and the ending isn’t what’s being sold all through the telling of it, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s a surprise, and who doesn’t like suprises? A freak. That’s who.

I love Mr. Backman, and I’m not gay, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that it’s hard to not read a book anymore without a dominant gay person in it, which isn’t a bad thing either, it’s just that my book doesn’t have one, even if there is technically a sexual scene involving two cisgender females, so perhaps I should emphasise that in my query letter, like…

Dear Ms agent (most are women)

The Song of Songs is a 100k novell (used to be 160k) about enduring friendship that will make you laugh and cry, uses the word “fuck” a lot, is mildly erotic without being pornographic, but mainly, it contains a scene with two women and a bathtub.