Reviews

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

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youngthespian42's review against another edition

5.0

Grippy psychologically driven character studies. I am not a sports fan but I grew up in a town similar to Beartown (football not hockey) and Backman hits it out of the park. The characters are so human so beautifully gray as we all are with positives and negatives. I was so excited to learn that this book continues on and I cannot wait to carve out time for the next installment.

missy_reading's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

natalie_is_reading's review against another edition

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5.0

This book just… had me. I was sneaking it into moments, vaguely aware of what it was building to, wanting to see what would happen next, then I just sat down for three hours and finished it in a “study break”. It just moves, quietly and peacefully and painfully and there are so many things going on between every character and you just want to hear more about each and every story and your heart breaks a million times but that’s just how life is.
Such a good quote out of this book: “The only thing the sport gives us is moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?”
An incredibly powerful and moving book.
On a lighter note, I went ice skating yesterday and you know I was channeling all of my new ice-hockey-skating knowledge as I struggled and fell so many times (but kept getting up!!)

eesh25's review against another edition

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5.0

Where to even start... I did not anticipate the emotional impact of this book. I mean, I had an idea of what to expect from the author, having read A Man Called Ove, but I'd gone into this blind. On one hand that was great because I got to discover every part as I read it, but it also meant a few shocks were coming my way.

This is a story about many things. But mostly, if you consider the title, it's a story about a town. It's about the people of that town, all of them but also some specific ones. And it's a story about communities.

Beartown is a hockey town. And because of the precarious position the town is in, where it's about to be left behind by the rest of the world, hockey isn't just a sport the people like, it's a sport they need and value above almost anything else. It's a sport that they believe will save them. And that comes with a range of consequences. Most importantly, there's the pressure that the hockey team and management are under and the amount of leeway the town is willing to its players in other aspects, as long as they're good players.

The book is in third-person omniscient, and it follows a bunch of characters, some more closely than others. That takes up a big chunk of the first quarter of the novel, but it's worth these not just because of how these stories collide but also because they're just interesting to read.

The main conflict in this book is difficult. I think I, and most people really, see bad incidents and try to categorize them in our worldview so that we'll know how to deal with similar things in the future. And even knowing that things aren't as simple as wholly good and wholly bad, it's tempting to take a concrete stance, to pick one side and not even think about this other.

The great thing Backman does here is he doesn't tell you to not take sides. In fact, there is definitely a good and a bad side to this conflict; both the author and the reader know it. And it's the subtext that makes you think that the worst things aren't always done by the worst people, makes you wonder about crime, punishment and fairness. And the law just feels too limited to provide real justice. Also, in the past year, I've thought more and more about just how ineffective prisons are, and this book kinda supports that for me. Though that might not be an intention the book had.

Other than that, the book also focuses heavily on how communities react to conflict and about the things that influence their behaviour. Basically, the book is about a lot of things, and I don't intend to try and list them all here. So just read it and find out.