Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Beartown

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

risemini's review

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dark emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.25

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astoriareader's review

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

SYNOPSIS

Beartown is a small town, where everyone worships the hockey team.
Basically, the town’s future is riding on the success of the junior boys’ hockey team.
Each chapter contains lots of different characters & shifts between their perspectives.
Check trigger warnings, as main conflict in book involves sexual assault/rape.

MY THOUGHTS

The writing style was strange to me. I didn’t like the third person narrator, and I wasn’t a fan of the shifting perspective every few minutes.
Sooo many characters & perspectives that I never felt truly connected to any of them.
The ending was not satisfying.
Story drags on far too long.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️this one wasn’t for me, unfortunately.

Content Warnings

salt_y's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Frederick Backman simply has a way with words. Although this book made me cry most of the time, all the characters were written with such care that it took my breath away. The beginning was rather hard to get into properly, especially with the constantly switching perspectives, representing basically everyone who lives in Beartown. As soon as the 40% mark hit however, I couldn't put it down and was destroyed by the story in the best way. Mind the content warnings before going into this!

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catarina187's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book tells us about a small ice town that lives for field hockey. At the beginning of the book, we get to know various characters and their families and how their lives are intertwined with the town's field hockey club: we meet the president, players, coaches, staff and various people who simply have a great passion for this sport and this club. However, this field hockey team brings us much more than sport. Various conflicts arise between the different characters, for different reasons, and everything ends up being reflected in the team's performance and the way the whole club operates.

The book is superbly written and, as you get to know the characters and see the story unfold, you can feel very involved in the book. However, the book starts off painfully slowly, making it a little difficult to get interested. Nevertheless, Backamn's writing is undoubtedly exceptional: there is no one who creates characters and scenarios like him, making the reader experience the reality described in the book as intensely as possible. I feel sorry for the beginning of the book, as it was really hard to get into, but once the story starts to develop, it becomes really good and addictive.

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acorny's review

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dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Took a really long time to get into this one, almost gave up on it several times. Definitely worth sticking with it though, the characters felt very real from all the backstory given. Check content warnings.

Content Warnings