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A review by morgob
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
5.0
This book hit a little too close to home for me, but in a good way... I think. I may have to hide this entire review for spoilers, but I need to discuss some things in order to get my point across. Beartown is about a hockey town, but one of the main plot points is a girl is raped by the star hockey player. Long story short, very very few people in the town believe her, and this is mostly due to the fact that it happened right before their season final game that sort of determined the fate of that town's hockey team, so everyone assumed she was making it up for attention and to purposefully cause the team to lose the final. So, to put it lightly, I knew what the town's mindset was going to be because I have experienced this mindset before, first-hand. It is horrifying and just disgusting, but it is true.
Backman's novel hits home for several reasons, but that is the main one: sometimes a small town mindset is just not good. And it is not okay to just "go with the flow" to fit in. AND if you say you "don't want to pick a side", you already have. And it's probably the wrong one. This world--particularly small towns--will remain disgusting and ignorant if we just let these things slide and don't do anything to go against the flow and try to incite change. The other thing that absolutely made my blood boil was the blatant sexist and misogynist attitudes of the men and boys in the town and how absolutely nothing is done about it. (To be clear, I am not bashing Backman at all; I think he hit the nail right on the head.) I mean, seriously? If a whole group of male students--let alone just one--called me "sweet cheeks" there would be hell to pay. Their parents would hear from me, and their coaches.
To say this book made me angry would be a bit of an understatement. But it also terrified me. It made me not want to have kids, for all the horrible things that could happen to them. I could do everything possible and still not be able to protect them and keep them safe from harm, as displayed by several different examples in the book, from illness to crime.
The parts that I liked about the book were the sports-related aspects. I could relate to a lot of things even though it's a sport I've never played before. I want to be a coach, and it made me think about the kind of coach I want to be. I do NOT want to be a David or a Lars. I want to be more like Sune, nurturing the boys and being able to get them to their very best. I care more about the individual than the team. That may be a fault of mine. I find I always relate at least a little bit to sports books.
The other thing I liked was the look at outcasts, a glimpse into an unlikely character's life. I liked the bad parents because I got to see people with faults and I got to see them wake up and realize their mistakes. If there's one thing I like, it's justice. I liked that there were so many instances that I could relate to, most often being people's very wrong opinions. Wow. This book just got me heated. I had to finish it one night because I just had to see how it ended. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, but the most prominent one is anger. And helplessness. I felt very helpless reading this book because I know, where I live and where I work, the same thing could happen and I could do very little to change the outcome. The only thing I can tell myself is that I can make a difference, that it is possible. Also, Jeannette was probably one of my favorite teachers. Let's go, female high school teachers.
Backman's novel hits home for several reasons, but that is the main one: sometimes a small town mindset is just not good. And it is not okay to just "go with the flow" to fit in. AND if you say you "don't want to pick a side", you already have. And it's probably the wrong one. This world--particularly small towns--will remain disgusting and ignorant if we just let these things slide and don't do anything to go against the flow and try to incite change. The other thing that absolutely made my blood boil was the blatant sexist and misogynist attitudes of the men and boys in the town and how absolutely nothing is done about it. (To be clear, I am not bashing Backman at all; I think he hit the nail right on the head.) I mean, seriously? If a whole group of male students--let alone just one--called me "sweet cheeks" there would be hell to pay. Their parents would hear from me, and their coaches.
To say this book made me angry would be a bit of an understatement. But it also terrified me. It made me not want to have kids, for all the horrible things that could happen to them. I could do everything possible and still not be able to protect them and keep them safe from harm, as displayed by several different examples in the book, from illness to crime.
The parts that I liked about the book were the sports-related aspects. I could relate to a lot of things even though it's a sport I've never played before. I want to be a coach, and it made me think about the kind of coach I want to be. I do NOT want to be a David or a Lars. I want to be more like Sune, nurturing the boys and being able to get them to their very best. I care more about the individual than the team. That may be a fault of mine. I find I always relate at least a little bit to sports books.
The other thing I liked was the look at outcasts, a glimpse into an unlikely character's life. I liked the bad parents because I got to see people with faults and I got to see them wake up and realize their mistakes. If there's one thing I like, it's justice. I liked that there were so many instances that I could relate to, most often being people's very wrong opinions. Wow. This book just got me heated. I had to finish it one night because I just had to see how it ended. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, but the most prominent one is anger. And helplessness. I felt very helpless reading this book because I know, where I live and where I work, the same thing could happen and I could do very little to change the outcome. The only thing I can tell myself is that I can make a difference, that it is possible. Also, Jeannette was probably one of my favorite teachers. Let's go, female high school teachers.