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A review by meaghanjohns
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
4.0
"Anything that grows closely enough to what it loves will eventually share the same roots. "
4.5 stars. One of Fredrik Backman's strengths is his ability to write a wide spectrum of characters with deep empathy and understanding. He humanizes each and every character - the heroes, the villains, and those who fall somewhere in the middle. This is a particularly useful skill to have with a novel like Beartown, where the cast of characters within the small town is spread far and wide.
I won't say any more about the plot other than emphasizing that while at the outset this novel appears to be "about hockey", it's about so much more. It's about sports culture (the good, the ugly, and the very, very bad), but it's also about people and community and gender and family and courage and love and fear and all the ways, big and small, in which we hurt each other and try to make amends.
While this novel took me a little longer than I would have liked to get into it, I soon moved from a walk to a jog and then finally an ignore-everything-else-and-stay-up-til-3am run to the finish line. By the end of it, Backman found his way onto the list of my very favourite authors.
4.5 stars. One of Fredrik Backman's strengths is his ability to write a wide spectrum of characters with deep empathy and understanding. He humanizes each and every character - the heroes, the villains, and those who fall somewhere in the middle. This is a particularly useful skill to have with a novel like Beartown, where the cast of characters within the small town is spread far and wide.
I won't say any more about the plot other than emphasizing that while at the outset this novel appears to be "about hockey", it's about so much more. It's about sports culture (the good, the ugly, and the very, very bad), but it's also about people and community and gender and family and courage and love and fear and all the ways, big and small, in which we hurt each other and try to make amends.
While this novel took me a little longer than I would have liked to get into it, I soon moved from a walk to a jog and then finally an ignore-everything-else-and-stay-up-til-3am run to the finish line. By the end of it, Backman found his way onto the list of my very favourite authors.