Beartown (Beartown, #1) in Around the Year in 52 Books

Nov 27, 2017 John Warner rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, sports, moral-choice

This is the first Backman novel I have read. Since I never read his more popular, apparently more light-hearted A Man Called Ove, I had no prior expectations.

Since the factory closed down, there is little left in the small town of Beartown but the hockey club and arena. The entire town supports hockey and its youth teams. After a major win, the team's captain in a state of drunken inebriation commits a sexual assault. The episode is witnessed by a poor young immigrant who has only recently made ...more

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Jun 29, 2017 Joan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novels

This is a rich, multilayered story about a town, a culture, and a sport, and the people who both create and are created by them. The characters are real. The conflicts are painful. Right and wrong are not the same as good and evil. The gentlest are the strongest, and the quietest are the loudest. I highly recommend it..

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Dec 06, 2018 Carrie rated it it was ok

I really struggled with this book because I found most of the characters so deplorable. I know it's not set in America but I just kept thinking that all of these assholes probably would have voted for Trump. It took me 3 months of forcing myself to read it to finally finish...ugh... ...more

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Jan 04, 2021 Ann rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2021-aty-52

Reminded me of a Celeste Ng book in terms of structure. I mistakenly expected a light read but this was grim.

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Feb 28, 2020 Graceann rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction, popsugar-2020, aty-2020, banned-by-idiots

So. Much. Hockey. Since I'm not a hockey follower and don't know much about the game, I'm sure I lost a bit of the nuance that such interest/knowledge might bring. However, I have the feeling that, much like the television series Friday Night Lights and the film Field of Dreams, there's much more to see here than any specific sport.

Beartown is pretty much cut off from the rest of the world, or so it seems. The economy is depressed, as are most of the people, and the only thing that seems to bri So. Much. Hockey. Since I'm not a hockey follower and don't know much about the game, I'm sure I lost a bit of the nuance that such interest/knowledge might bring. However, I have the feeling that, much like the television series Friday Night Lights and the film Field of Dreams, there's much more to see here than any specific sport.

Beartown is pretty much cut off from the rest of the world, or so it seems. The economy is depressed, as are most of the people, and the only thing that seems to bring them together, is hockey. The kids, the businesspeople, the families --- hockey. It seems that they have their first chance in a long time to get the championship, if the adults can keep the players focused, and if the players don't create their own problems.

I had some issues with the way the story was told, and judging by some of the other reviews, I wasn't the only one. I had such trouble telling Peter from David from Kevin from Maya from Ana from Kira, etc., etc., etc. There were so many characters with such interchangeable names, that it seemed additionally naughty of Mr Backman to give us so little transition between one character's thoughts and actions and another's. I'm reading about David and then as if out of nowhere, the paragraph is all about Kevin. I think I might have read this much, much faster if I hadn't been going back all the time to see where the switch had been made.

There is a triggering event in the story, and those of us who have lived in the world for five minutes will know exactly what to expect because we've seen it play out over and over and over again. When you read a story about a swimmer who evades any serious jail time over a brutal assault because "he has such a bright future," you find the fertile ground in which Beartown was grown. It's an important story, but that doesn't make it any less challenging to read.

Meanwhile, Fredrik Backman gives us more amazing writing to savor. I copied so many quotes into my book journal, from the hilarious:

[he was] sitting at his desk eating his sandwich the way a German Shepherd would try to eat a balloon filled with mayonnaise

to the painfully true:

The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple.

Whatever quibbles I might have with the way the the novel is pieced together, and with the names of the characters, it never occurred to me to set it down and walk away. I wouldn't miss the way Backman puts words together for anything. ...more

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