Us Against You

3.5 rounded upwards

a grand portrayal of a small town, a bit of a mess yet so sincere and so committed to the stories it tells. for every questionable or unnecessary bit of writing (or lack of writing - seriously, why was there so little focus on amat?) there's two moments that flat out made me want to cry. very clearly the middle child of a trilogy, there's a lot of set-up that is never acted upon which is quite clearly intended for book 3 (leo, alicia, etc etc). and for how blunt the metaphors and foreshadowing can be, i also find them incredibly effective. there's a certain implication about benji's fate, for example, that's been frequently set-up from book one and it still hits hard.

in short: some things could be chopped off or toned down a bit, yet it's ultimately a very cohesive and poignant piece of fiction. maybe the sort of thing that i won't love in a few years, yet for the time being it's really clicked.

“He's twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.”

An apt sequel. I enjoyed getting back to the inhabitants of Beartown and it was a satisfactory wrap-up to the story.

When I started this I thought “not as good as Beartown” but by the end Backman made me care about the characters again, damn him!!