Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

13 reviews

mooslibrary's review

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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infinite_mirrors's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The writing in this book is lovely. I can't help but wonder how much is lost in translation from the original Swedish version. I love stories like this too, where small town culture gets rocked by An Event and changes the course of everyone's lives forever. Also, hockey!! What is it about sports books? I don't even like sports (but as a Russian I am obligated to like hockey). Anyway, I enjoyed this book. It didn't really say anything new in my opinion, but the focus on culture and community and individual actions and how all of them tie into one-another was interesting.

At times I did get tired of the sort of passive, anecdotal nature of the prose. It really slowed the narrative down and made every moment a meditative think-piece, which is great and moving once in a while but is tiresome when employed in every other paragraph of a novel. 

There were many characters in this book. The first third or so of the novel dragged a bit as every one of them had their backgrounds, beliefs, and interpersonal relationships dissected; not that it wasn't enjoyable or well-written! It was just very slow. Speaking of the characters, they were real, nuanced, flawed human beings... except for the times when they were caricatures of good and evil. Maya in particular, the victim of a horrible crime, ceased being a regular 15-year-old as soon as the crime was committed and became a paragon of ideal martyrdom. Most of the other characters had their mistakes and good and bad moments in turn, but Maya was like wise and mature saint, more a stand-in for victims everywhere than her own person. I'm not sure if this was intentional on the author's part or a very ironic outcome of trying to treat victims with respect and dignity. This is a minor grievance and didn't detract too much from the story for me, but it was noticeable. 

A warning, because I didn't get one: sexual assault was a major plot point, and a catalyst for the events of the novel. The topic was treated with the care and gravitas it deserves, but the author did not gloss over or shy away from the horror and trauma of it. So read with caution.

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

Goosebumps, chills, tears. I cannot express how much this book got under my skin. It took me a little bit to get into it—I wasn’t sure I was going to like it—but before I knew it, I was deeply invested in this town and these characters. I was never quite sure what they were going to do—characters I trusted made choices that hurt me and characters I hated made choices that I was rooting for. And some characters I just hated and some characters I just loved (one of those hockey boys in particular has my whole entire heart and then some). The reading experience is really immersive. I felt like I was somewhere in that town, in the forest. And Backman has a way of writing that takes such complex topics and puts them into really simple words. It’s sort of a detour from what I usually love but there’s just something about the way that he uses repetition is just so compelling and powerful. 
I also really like the way that, even though it’s the first in a series, it can also stand on its own. Even though I want to stay with these characters and see what happens next, it felt complete. 

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te_ss_i's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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katharina90's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I adore the Beartown series. 

This story captures so beautifully what it means to be human and all that we're capable of... the best, the worst, and everything in between. It is emotional and captivating, at times heartbreaking, funny, tense and hopeful. 

Backman's characters are wonderfully complex, imperfect like the rest of us, and utterly lovable (or at least most of them...). 

The writing style is simple, succinct and fairly blunt, and there's a lot of foreshadowing. 

I was hooked immediately and will definitely be rereading this in the years to come. 


Quotes: 

"Words are not small things." 

"Difficult questions, simple answers. What is a community? It is the sum total of our choices."


[I listened to the audiobook this time. It is well narrated and I enjoyed it a lot, but definitely prefer reading this story myself so I can reread sentences and paragraphs to my heart's content.]

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changelingreader_adrian's review

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challenging emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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katharina90's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I adore the Beartown series. 

This story captures so beautifully what it means to be human and all that we're capable of... the best, the worst, and everything in between. It is emotional and captivating, at times heartbreaking, funny, tense and hopeful. 

Backman's characters are wonderfully complex, imperfect like the rest of us, and utterly lovable (or at least most of them...). 

The writing style is simple, succinct and fairly blunt, and there's a lot of foreshadowing. 

I was hooked immediately and will definitely be rereading this in the years to come. 


Quotes: 

"Words are not small things." 

"Difficult questions, simple answers. What is a community? It is the sum total of our choices."

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hawkguyscoffee's review

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A thoroughly interesting story, I couldn't take my eyes off the book the moment I got into it, Though slow paced and repetitive, these are the things that make the writer's writing style really charming and unique and what eventually you come to love. Though I don't entirely agree with many views expressed in the book, I can clearly see that it mostly tries to analyse where someone comes from and what makes them think and do what they do, even when it looks senseless to the outsiders, rather than analyse wether is was wrong or right. I also loved how even on a book so focused on the aforementioned, it still unequivocally condems things like 
rape, homophobia and misogyny
  because, as the book itself states,   
  "This town doesn’t always know the difference between right and wrong, but we know the difference between good and evil" 
 . Another thing I thoroughly loved was it's treatment of friendships and how it was captivated perfectly in both the adults and the youngsters. Finally, I'd like to add that I loved the descriptions of both the town and the players feelings, who were so vivid you could feel the cold on your nose and the passion for the sport in your heart.

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itshrewsbury's review

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emotional reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Backman is an underrated writer; the way he writes characters, it’s clear he understands the inner workings of the human mind, why we do what we do, even if it makes no sense on the outside. 
His writing style reminds me a lot of Ellen Hopkins, where there’s an ambiguous chapter opener that connects the threads of the story together. 
Backman is also king of “both side”-ism, which is frustrating when the climactic event of the book is a rape, but overall makes for a great story.
It makes me curious if there’s any scientific studies on the mental and emotional trauma children in sports suffer, particularly in areas where sports are the end all be all of the community

18+

TW/CW: Drug use (marijuana) and addiction (alcohol), child abuse, hazing, transphobic comments, homophobia, rape, PTSD, racism, gang violence 

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jjeonghan's review

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dark emotional 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? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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