Beartown (Beartown, #1)

by Fredrik Backman

Lars both saves and destroys him

“Do you know why Bobo always cries and his ears hurt after he’s had sex?”

This is the assistant coach!

“Because of the pepper spray and rape whistle!” The storm of laughter from all the juniors makes the room shake. In the end even David smiles, and he’ll think back to that moment many times afterward: whether a joke is always only a joke, whether that particular one went too far,

Wow

He’ll feel ashamed of that forever.

Good

If David had asked him to go out and kill someone at that moment, he

would have done so without hesitation. When the coach stands in the middle of the room, after ten years with them, there isn’t a boy in there who doesn’t feel the same.

Good coaching or kinda ick?

The door opens. Kevin doesn’t walk out onto the ice. He takes it by storm.

Damn this boy needed a dad

There isn’t a single atheist in the whole building.

Are all of his books this good?!

For this one evening they’re seventeen years old again.

Sobs

But what the hell else is life made of?

How dare Fredrick Backman make me cry this hard at 12:30am

before the balance shifts and Maya becomes old enough to worry about her parents more than they do about her. Soon Maya won’t be Kira’s little girl anymore, and then Kira will become Maya’s little old mom. It doesn’t take a lot to be able to let go of your child. It takes everything.

Omg

“Pah, they’re not KIDS,

They sure are

That’s the last time they see each other in their childhood. That ends tonight.

Well now i cant go to bed!

Very few people are tequila and champagne at the same time.

Love this line

Staying silent in return for being allowed to join in.

Yuck

“Boys, how do you fit four gays on a chair at the same time? You turn it upside down!” Everyone laughed. Benji remembers glancing surreptitiously at David, and saw that he was laughing, too. It’s just as easy to be exclusive as it is to be inclusive,

Cries in closeted queer childhood trauma

Dear God. Will this love for her daughter ever stop being unbearable?

Probably Not

Perhaps it’s different when you’ve had to bury one of your own children, or perhaps all parents feel this way, but the only thing Kira has ever wanted for her kids was health, safety, and a best friend. You can get through anything then. Almost.

Kira might be my favorite charcter

“Sorry. It was my fault. That last goal. I was marking him. Sorry.” His mom hugs him as if he were little again, even though he’s now so big that he could have picked her up with one hand.

All this kids growing up through this book is so beautiful and sad and terrifying as a mom myself.

We need to be… on our own as a family.”

How heartbreaking for ana

Of all the people your daughter could have chosen as her best friend, she’s picked one who’s just like you. One who wears her heart on her sleeve.”

😩😩😩

It starts with “she wanted it” and ends with “she deserved it.”

I am shook a man wrote this book tbh. In a good way.

However you do the sums it’s never enough. The days are too few to amount to a whole life.

:'''''''''-(

“Big secrets turn us into small men.” Benji doesn’t answer. But he feels small.

How she and her husband used to come home from trips abroad when Kevin was ten or eleven and find the house in a complete mess.

Uhhhh 10 or 11?!?!

so that no one would know he had slept at Benji’s the whole time.

“You moved here for me. I can move away from here for her.”

Can you stay for her too dad? What would you have done?

Maya is the first to realize what the real danger is. It takes Peter a few more seconds to figure it out. They rush for the front door together but it’s too late. It’s wide open. The Volvo has already pulled out of the drive, Kira at the wheel.

Yeah. Same.

In every time and every place, I’ve come across men who blame their own stupidity on crap they themselves have invented. ‘Religion causes wars,’ ‘guns kill people,’ it’s all the same old bullshit!”

“Keep your trap shut when I’m talking! Fucking men! YOU’RE the problem!

In the corridor there’s a locker on which the word BITCH is no longer scrawled, because he spent part of the night scrubbing it clean. Because he knows what it’s like to be the one other people hurt, just because they can. Because he knows what the strong do to the weak in this town.

Sobbing. Was really worried for a minute

We know him. He’s not that sort of guy. Not at all.”

1 in 5 women are raped in america . Yet almost no one knows "that sort of guy," belive women. Believe us.

His mom always said that every child is like a heart transplant. He understands that now.

Crying like a baby what did this mean to you?

All your best qualities come from the fact that you’ve been raised in a house full of women.”

Please let this be true

many of the very worst things we do to each other occur because of the same thing.

This is such a powerful statement

The father bends over the engine again without speaking. Bobo fetches a hoodie and a scarf.

I know this is set in sweden and sweds are notoriously aloof but where is the parenting???

Not at home.

Good parenting to me. Bare minimum but good

Perhaps one day the man in the black jacket will think about this too: why he only wondered if it was Kevin or Amat who was telling the truth. Why Maya’s word wasn’t enough.

Because we’ve been conditioned to see it this way.

They kiss each other for the first time on that ice.

Sobs in queer

“It’s not just about not hurting anyone. It’s about not keeping your mouth shut too. I’ve been cowardly. I should have stood tall. And you… Christ, boy…”

Good men know they have certain responsibilities always. In every interaction. And especially in interactions with marginalized people. Proud of Hog here.

“No, boy, no, no, no. Christ. Pull yourself together. Is that what you wanted to know? That doesn’t make you anything. That’s your private life, and it’s no one else’s damn business.” Bobo nods. “Can I ask something else, then?” “Okay.” “How do you know if you’ve got a nice-looking cock?” His dad shuts his eyes and rubs his temples. “I need whisky if I’m going to talk about this.”

Again this feels very swedish

Then she stands there and howls, with an echo that will never fall silent in her heart.

Just holding a pair of skates in his hands, waiting for hours for someone who never shows up.

More queer tears

Kevin will get everything he’s ever wanted.

Right now i kinda hope she kils him tbh

“That was my DAD’S watch, you little brats!” The words caught in his throat when he saw the look in the boys’ eyes. His guilt about that has never really left him.

he should feel guilty. Guilt builds a conscience.

Yet even so, one of them did.

No. Lots of them have secrets. Kevin has a secret too remember?

He never got into fights.

Oooohhhhhhh this is why he hates peter

There’s a hockey puck on a gravestone in Beartown. The writing is small, so that all the words can fit. Still the bravest bastard I know. Beside the puck lies a watch.

Wait whhat?!?!

So they drive toward Hed. Because friendship is both complicated and not complicated at all.

This would have been a no for me. Beartown or somewhhere else. But not with Lyt, not with kevin.

Tails didn’t know anything about, so he’d end up being the lost dad in the stands who kept getting the rules wrong and couldn’t take part in discussions. He didn’t want his son to be ashamed of him.

The heart is right but the incompetence is certainly weaponized. Like you cant learn new things? Bffr