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(2nd read: 2022) Even though I know what's going to happen, or perhaps because I do, this book still hits like I'm being punched in the chest. At times I have to force myself to keep reading because I know how it'll feel when I do, but it's an addictive pain, I can't help it.
A good book makes me want to finish it, to see what happens. A great book makes me feel something the whole way through. This one is a level above that. Backman writes characters that can make me scared, laugh, weep, and eve ...more
A good book makes me want to finish it, to see what happens. A great book makes me feel something the whole way through. This one is a level above that. Backman writes characters that can make me scared, laugh, weep, and eve ...more
New favourite author. Sometimes it really pays to read outside your genre comfort zone. Easy 5+ star.
3.5 Stars
This book was a lot less whimsical and a lot more sobering than Backman's previous offerings. Still, having read Missoula by Jon Krakauer last year, I know the importance of the troubling topic that this book deals with. And you can tell the author still retains his sense of humor and overall human decency, for, though the ending is far from happy, it is also far from the worst it could be.
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Backman goes pretty dark in this cynical and thorough assessment of a small forest town's obsession with hockey. It took a while for me to figure out that Backman is not all that much of a hockey fan and that the violence and chauvinism in the sport is being exposed as either a problem or perhaps the symptom of a deeper problem in society.
As a devoted fan of Backman's earlier feel-good pieces, I was a bit disappointed by this slow-moving and pedantic work. But then half-way through there is a cr ...more
As a devoted fan of Backman's earlier feel-good pieces, I was a bit disappointed by this slow-moving and pedantic work. But then half-way through there is a cr ...more
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This is still a 5-star read for me after 5 years.
Jun 21, 2017
Cora
marked it as tbr-on-hand
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review of another edition
Shelves:
audio-book-at-library,
kindle,
sweden,
sports,
ebook-at-library,
small-town,
swedish-author,
hockey,
wpbtf2022,
jd-dh
Oct 30, 2017
Heather
marked it as to-read
Jun 20, 2018
Susan
marked it as to-read
Dec 04, 2018
Darcy
marked it as to-read
