Review by leonormsousa - Beartown

leonormsousa 's review for:

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

5.0

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I think the best word to describe what Beartown was to me is unexpected. Not unexpected in terms of quality (I mean I had seen how much Sara from @book.vorfreude loved it and she has great taste so I was already expecting to love it as well) but pretty much in every other sense of the word.

I went in without knowing much about the book and I think that’s the best way to go. The synopsis is kind of vague (which I very much approve of in this case) and there’s not even a genre that you can quite attribute to the book. Even after reading it, it’s hard to describe what this book is about. What I can say is that it is, at its very core, a book about humans. And a delicious one indeed.

Beartown is most definitely a slow burner. For the first half of the book, it feels like nothing’s happening. But, surprise, surprise: it’s only the great (and very much needed) set-up for what is to come. You spend 200 pages getting to know these characters, their history, their passions, their goals and wishes, and what drives them. You create empathy with all of them. And then, Backman slowly “breaks” them, one by one.

I got to tell you, this book was definitely one of the most violently emotional books I’ve ever read. It got to a point where I was crying almost every chapter (and I’m not even an easy crier). And the reason why it was so is that it felt so absolutely REAL. Every character, every action, every plot line. There are many great things about this book, but I believe this is the biggest one.

Backman’s writing is quite simple, yet very peculiar. The sentences in Beartown are short and concise. Almost like they’re just stating facts, one after the other. At the same time, we’re constantly skipping points of view, with our third-person narrator following an enormous amount of characters (I would say we follow about 5-10 more closely, but maybe 20+ in total). So, it’s rather curious how with both these characteristics, they are still able to capture the essence of each character so well. I, personally, quite enjoyed this writing style, although I can see why some people wouldn’t.

Although there were several topics in Beartown that I found tremendously interesting, the one that took the biggest toll on me was the family/parenthood relationships. I won’t develop this a lot because I don’t think I can do it without spoiling anything, but this was definitely a topic that I hadn’t seen explored before, at least not in this way. In particular, seeing the reciprocity of pain and protectiveness. How there’s never just one victim, how trauma is something that propagates through your loved ones. It was just heartbreaking. Something I’m looking forward to reading more about (a bit of a masochist, aren’t I?!).

Finally, to close this already too big review: I am obviously very much excited to read other Backman’s books, although I heard that this one is completely different from the others. I also know that there is a sequel to Beartown already published and a final one yet to be translated but tbh I’m not super eager to read them just because this works so well as a standalone and I don’t want to ruin it. I’ll still probably do it though, eventually... And of course, thank you to Sara for recommending this one!

REP: gay MC, arab MC

Content Warnings