Beartown

I will not be rating this because 1. I can not know what to rate this book b. I wanted to read a book for personal enjoyment instead of obsessing over the rating I'd give.

This is technically my second book by the author, as I had dnf'ed a man called ove. This took me a bit by surprise and inserted me into the story. I laughed, well, didn't exactly cry, but my heart broke so many times for some of the characters while I wanted to kill others.

Fantastic. You ever have a feeling like you are reading something important? Not in a preachy, political, or agenda-driven fashion, but just meaningful beyond the words on the pages or what's being delivered on the surface? It doesn't happen often for me, but it was clear early in the book that this one was special...at least to me. It was a combination of the complex, realistic characters, the interwoven storylines, writing style, setting, and content...really everything.

I'm not gonna go deep on a review. Just do yourself a favor and read it. I love sports, but hate hockey. I think being able to relate to the love of a team did play a part in my experience, but I'm not convinced that tie is essential.

Can't wait to read it again.

Actual rating: 4/5 stars

Read for Winterween 2022: book with a winter setting & book with snow on the cover

I really did love the themes in this book. This book is very important and this made me understand why people really love team sports which is a weird thing to get from this book. I have never really been a sports person even tho I played them when I was younger but I never understand why people are always so committed to them. This made me understand that. Besides that I really like how all the perspectives mattered to tell a story of how sexual assault can impact so many people especially when sports players are involved. The writing wasn't my favorite and it was a bit too slow for me but besides that I adored this.

“Bitterness can be corrosive. It can rewrite your memories as if it were scrubbing a crime scene clean, until in the end you only remember what suits you of its causes.”

The books deals, of course, with a heavy topic but the at the core is not what happened but aspects of the human condition overall. The author describes very vividly the core of a small town and its inhabitants, it could be a town anywhere, the fundamentals still apply. He's also good at characterization, it's easy to get into the minds of these characters so it's not surprising when you end up caring for them. The way he describes hokey is also skillful. I am, generally, completely uninterested in sports but throughout reading this book I actually got it.

Even though I greatly appreciated this book there was still something holding me back from getting completely immersed it, I can't put my finger on what it was. Maybe the pacing?

Magnificently crafted masterpiece! How can Frederick Beckman write about such heavy topics in such a way that we find no fault to any sides? How is he such a master storyteller? Some chapters end in cliffhangers and the story might continue only a few chapters later but still feel seamless. There are many points of view which gets confusing at first, because of the number of characters in this book and it starts out slow because it is trying to set the scene for a town that revolves around its hockey and its hockey players. This book might come to be known as a classic in the future, the author captures complex human emotions and moral grey areas so well. Listened to the audiobook version, and the narrator did an outstanding job!

Wowie. I demolished this book. Very well-written about such nuanced topics. I'm not sure how one tackles class, race, privilege, abuse, queerness and small-town loyalty all in one book and still have it be cohesive, but this book did it.

It felt very true and very real and also very bittersweet. There were many hard pills to swallow but the author didn't feel the need to clean them away, which I appreciated.

Not sure I need more books in the series—not sure there even needed to be a series?? But this one is perfect.

backman has mastered the art of seamlessly blending the lives of 50 million characters in one book. I don't know how he does it. I think he did an amazing job at depicting rape culture and what being in a small town where the same ideas are recycled through generations without anyone questioning them, does to people. there were times where I felt like he let the bubble of this being a fiction book pop and poured his feelings of anger and disgust of how the rapist is coddled and victimized while the victim themselves, is villainized. It read like a condemnation of rape culture and groupthink.

choosing to write about a small, financially insecure town whose only form of light and hope is not just hockey, but whoever the star player is, was a brilliant backdrop to condemn these faults in our society because its more explicit with less distractions to shy away from the faults with influences of a larger society. the star player is supposed to be their way out, a way to their make their lives better and worth living. so they choose blissful ignorance. their money makers can do no wrong, because their money makers are their beacons of hope.

this way of thinking is fucked up and unhealthy and breeds young boys into young men into fully grown men who were never allowed and taught to be human. only to be winners. and if they're not treated as such, they lash out in anger and throw temper tantrums because you won't treat them as immortal and give them what they want. and this extends beyond sports, as we all already know.

thank you sm if you read all of this, I know its a lot to read and digest, but this is what “beartown” is. when I talk to my friends about SA, we always say “when” it will happen to us instead of “if”, and it shouldn't be like that at all.

Well written on extremely difficult topic. Perhaps not the best bedtime reading, but captured some very true psychological experiences, and I appreciate the validation. I kinda hate the town(sfolk), but love the HECK out of Ramona. I hope to see a lot more of her in the next books.

Reminded me in some senses of Dogville. Partner complained about lack of attention on goalies. I just worry a tad whether the book gives the sport in general a bit of bad reputation. (I play a lot and live in towns with leagues, but not too personally familiar with small towns or “clubs”. Write in sport of your choice, basically. Aside from touching on the expense of great for the sport, it was pretty light on hockey.

I've been reading A LOT of fantasy this year, full on epic fantasies that are often really lengthy and in-depth and after finishing the mammoth that is The Priory of the Orange Tree I felt the need for a little break, a little bit of contemporary and so I picked up Beartown by Fredrik Backman.

I have heard nothing but amazing things about Backman's books and have been promising myself to get to them but when I saw this on the library shelf I couldn't stop myself from picking it up. I knew a little about its plot, that it was about a hockey-mad small town in the middle of nowhere where a young girl accuses the town's hockey star of rape and the fall out around the events as the town takes sides.

This book was hiding something much more between its pages though, I quickly fell in love with this book because what I found Backman did so well was to be able to introduce a whole myriad of characters from Beartown and make us care about all of them, whether they were a central character or one of those on the periphery. Each and every person lets us into their world and tells us about their world in Beartown and what it means to them and this makes for a powerfully emotional story that feels multi-dimensional and full of amazing relationships.

Through lots of hockey analogies and coaching techniques, we delve into whether or not the town and the hockey team might be to blame for what has happened, whether they have raised the team in the town to believe they are untouchable. We also explore the divide between how boys are treated by the community versus the girls. It's a highly volatile story and one that will prick at the conscience.

I haven't read much contemporary at all over the past year or so, I could count on one hand the number of books of this genre as often I haven't enjoyed them as much but I loved Beartown. I really enjoyed the beautiful writing of Backman and I am now desperately awaiting arrival at my library of the second Beartown book in the series, Us Against You which will allow me a chance to spend more time with all the wonderful residents of this small town.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough and it stands out as one of my favourite books of 2019 so far.

4.5 stars. I love the way this author write his characters. They seem so real and relatable.

5 stars for writing
4 stars for the story

There are some very disturbing events which include a sexual assault and there is a lot of very strong language. The behaviors are certainly not condoned but they are present and quite graphic at times

I picked this up because I am a cheerleader in one of the groups on Goodreads and so many of the members had read or were excited to read it I felt compelled to give it a shot.

Bearstown is a dying, rural town that has placed all its economic hopes on the town's hockey club. When the star player is accused of raping the daughter of the club's general manager a week before an important championship tournament the town is torn apart and it must decide what its soul is worth.

The plot crawls at first, depending heavily on “clickbait” teasers to keep the reader intrigued. The timeline in fluid, filled with flashbacks. It takes some concentration on the part of the reader to locate oneself correctly in the ensuing fog of time that drifts across the pages. We see the character 10 years in the future. Then the narrative in the next paragraph returns to the present only to jump to a flashback several paragraphs later.

The prose is simple and sparse — like a blog post. At first it felt annoying then it began to feel relentless The characters are strongly defined.

The author does a good job of using Beartown and the residents' relationship with hockey to demonstrate the inherent messiness of life. Life here, like everywhere, is lived out in shades of gray. This is a character driven novel, so a reader looking for a lot of action might find the story to be slow moving. Recommended for readers who enjoy literary fiction.

Wow, what a good book. A third of the way in I was skeptical, because as beautifully written as it was (a trademark for Backman), I am not a hockey person and detest “hockey culture”, growing up in a relatively small town in Canada, the entire thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I shouldn't have worried. Once the central event happens, you understand what this book is trying to do and from there, everything is a rollercoaster of emotions.

After having trouble with both this and Anxious people initially, and then loving both of them, I now understand that Backman has my full confidence to tell the story he's trying to tell in, in a way only Backman can do. I'm gonna have to read all of his books.

When a town's entire culture is based on hockey, and something threatens to destroy that, how does the town react? Painful to read at so many moments, but kindness comes from unexpected places and maybe everything will all work out in the end. Beartown hits hard emotionally and isn't the best Backman story to start with,but is so worth it in the end. (Read trigger warnings before starting)

“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”

“Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”

I liked this more than “Man called Ove”. Loved the depth of the characters and the insights into different people's and community's behavior. Backman's writing ultimately draws you in. I could feel what each character was going through and was heavily invested in them. You can feel the pain every character undergoes, you can see every tree, every road, and every scar on everyone.

This book is dark and emotionally compelling. Being a parent, this book hit me harder in multiple places.

“Being a parent makes you feel like a blanket that's always too small. No matter how hard you try to cover everyone, there's always someone who's freezing.”

This was my first Backman book and I've heard people say that his prose are something to behold. I would wholeheartedly agree that his writing style is beautiful. So credit for him and for the translator as well. 

When I started reading this book, I thought it was just going to be a book about hockey. But that's not quite right at all. Hockey is just the backdrop to a much larger story that asks questions about loyalty, tribalism, community, passion, morality, idolization and so on. It's a heart breaking tale in part because of how well written it is, but also because we've all heard this story in similar contexts in real life and I know it will be told countless times in my lifetime.

I can't do justice to the emotional roller coaster I felt during this novel. I was legitimately angry with characters and/or circumstances at points, incredibly frustrated to see how some things unfolded, disappointed in some of the action's characters took, saddened over what some have to overcome, heartbroken over what others have to carry, and laughed along with some jokers. 

I have always cherished books that illicit a strong emotional response from me and this novel is the epitome of that. That being said because it deals with rather serious topics, it can be uncomfortable to read at times, so it's hard to throw a blanket recommendation out there. Something each individual will have to investigate on their own.