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Beartown: A Novel (Beartown Series) by [Fredrik Backman]

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Fredrik Backman

Beartown: A Novel (Beartown Series) Kindle Edition

by Fredrik Backman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 43,719 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Beartown

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Now an HBO Original Series

“You’ll love this engrossing novel.” —People

Named a Best Book of the Year by LibraryReads, BookBrowse, and Goodreads

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People, a dazzling and profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.

By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Under that heavy burden, the match becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown.

This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

Book 1 of 3

Beartown
Print length

430 pages
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English
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Publisher

Atria Books
Publication date

April 25, 2017
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9608 KB
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Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

It doesn’t take a lot to be able to let go of your child. It takes everything.
Highlighted by 3,948 Kindle readers
“The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?”
Highlighted by 3,671 Kindle readers
“That most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”
Highlighted by 3,634 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR BEARTOWN

"Compelling characters and a wrenching story, beautifully told." (The New York Times Book Review)

“Backman is a masterful writer, his characters familiar yet distinct, flawed yet heroic. . . There are scenes that bring tears, scenes of gut-wrenching despair, and moments of sly humor. . .Like Friday Night Lights, this is about more than youth sports; it's part coming-of-age novel, part study of moral failure, and finally a chronicle of groupthink in which an unlikely hero steps forward to save more than one person from self-destruction. A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman's latest will resonate a long time.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Lest readers think hockey is the star here, it’s Backman’s rich characters that steal the show, and his deft handling of tragedy and its effects on an insular town. While the story is dark at times, love, sacrifice, and the bonds of friendship and family shine through ultimately offering hope and even redemption.” (Publishers Weekly)

"[A] slow burn of a novel about a community that pours all its hopes into a youth hockey team. Think Friday Night Lights for Swedes." (O, The Oprah Magazine)

"Backman is the Dickens of our age, and though you'll cry, your heart is safe in his hands." (Green Valley News (Arizona))

“There are, in the end, real acts of bravery and sacrifice in this appealing novel.” (Wall Street Journal)

“Mr. Backman cements his standing as a writer of astonishing depth and proves that he also has very broad range plus the remarkable ability to make you understand the feelings of each of a dozen different characters. . . . The story is fully packed with wise insights into the human experience causing characters and readers to ponder life’s great question of who we are, what we hope to be and how we should lead our lives.” (The Washington Times)

About the Author

Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, and Anxious People, as well as two novellas and one work of nonfiction. His books are published in more than forty countries. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. Connect with him on Facebook and Twitter @BackmanLand and on Instagram @Backmansk.

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of April 2017: How do I love Beartown? Let me count the ways. It’s a domestic drama in which a family is pulled apart by an act of violence. It’s a coming-of-age story for a young woman who must choose to speak out or keep silent. (And a young man, too, actually.) It’s a slow-build thriller, opening the story with the statement that one teenager is going to put a shotgun to the head of another and pull the trigger. It’s a cautionary tale of small-town thinking…yet at the same time celebrates how a handful of people can change a tight-knit community. Beartown has so much going on within its enjoyably readable pages that putting it in a literary box is all but impossible—and indeed that is one of the many reasons readers will pass this book amongst one another with a confident “I think you’ll like this.” As the town’s finances decline, small, scrappy Beartown hunkers deeper into itself, proud only of its white-hot junior hockey team led by a coach whose hard-driving mantra is, simply, “Win.” Seizing the upcoming hockey championship could lure a new hockey academy their way and jumpstart the local economy. But the exposure of a hidden crime sweeps the hockey club into its vortex and fractures the town and longtime friendships, even as it welds together new, unlikely alliances. Once the crime is revealed, Beartown could have strolled down an easy trail, but Backman refuses to tread it, sidestepping the predictable as he forges a new path of soul-searching and truth-telling. There are hard moments here, and readers might find difficult discoveries in their own hearts as the people of Beartown struggle with what they hope is real but fear is not. Masterful in its storytelling and honesty, this is another winner for Backman, surpassing even his much-lauded A Man Called Ove. —Adrian Liang, The Amazon Book Review --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From School Library Journal

In rural Sweden, a team of junior hockey players are on the cusp of changing everything for Beartown. If the players can win the championship, the small town may attract new businesses, improve its ailing economy, and recover its dignity. Everyone, from the local bar owner to the mother who cleans the rink, is linked to the boys and has a stake in whether they win or lose, making the teammates demigods within the community. After a night of celebrating a memorable semifinals win, the star player is accused of raping the general manager's daughter. The community must decide between holding the alleged rapist accountable, and thereby forfeiting their chances at success, and overlooking the crime. While this book has Backman's deep character development, it has none of the lightheartedness or mysticism of his previous best sellers, such as A Man Called Ove. This is a serious look at how the actions of one or two people can affect an entire town. VERDICT This title deserves a place on high school shelves for its complex characters and tight narrative. Schools with avid hockey fans won't want to miss it.—Krystina Kelley, Belle Valley School, Belleville, IL --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Beartown

1

Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

This is the story of how we got there.|Beartown

2

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang.

It’s a Friday in early March in Beartown and nothing has happened yet. Everyone is waiting. Tomorrow, the Beartown Ice Hockey Club’s junior team is playing in the semifinal of the biggest youth tournament in the country. How important can something like that be? In most places, not so important, of course. But Beartown isn’t most places.

Bang. Bang. Bang-bang-bang.

The town wakes early, like it does every day; small towns need a head start if they’re going to have any chance in the world. The rows of cars in the parking lot outside the factory are already covered with snow; people are standing in silent lines with their eyes half-open and their minds half-closed, waiting for their electronic punch cards to verify their existence to the clocking-in machine. They stamp the slush off their boots with autopilot eyes and answering-machine voices while they wait for their drug of choice—caffeine or nicotine or sugar—to kick in and render their bodies at least tolerably functional until the first break.

Out on the road the commuters set off for bigger towns beyond the forest; their gloves slam against heating vents and their curses are the sort you only think of uttering when you’re drunk, dying, or sitting in a far-too-cold Peugeot far too early in the morning.

*  *  *

If they keep quiet they can hear it in the distance: Bang-bang-bang. Bang. Bang.

*  *  *

Maya wakes up and stays in bed, playing her guitar. The walls of her room are covered in a mixture of pencil drawings and tickets she’s saved from concerts she’s been to in cities far from here. Nowhere near as many as she would have liked, but considerably more than her parents actually consented to. She loves everything about her guitar—its weight against her body, the way the wood responds when her fingertips tap it, the strings that cut hard against her skin. The simple notes, the gentle riffs—it’s all a wonderful game to her. She’s fifteen years old and has already fallen in love many times, but her guitar will always be her first love. It’s helped her to put up with living in this town, to deal with being the daughter of the general manager of an ice hockey team in the forest.

She hates hockey but understands her father’s love for it; the sport is just a different instrument from hers. Her mom sometimes whispers in her daughter’s ear: “Never trust people who don’t have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.” Her mom loves a man who loves a place that loves a game. This is a hockey town, and there are plenty of things you can say about those, but at least they’re predictable. You know what to expect if you live here. Day after day after day.

Bang.

Beartown isn’t close to anything. Even on a map the place looks unnatural. “As if a drunk giant tried to piss his name in the snow,” some might say. “As if nature and man were fighting a tug-of-war for space,” more high-minded souls might suggest. Either way, the town is losing. It has been a very long time since it won at anything. More jobs disappear each year, and with them the people, and the forest devours one or two more abandoned houses each season. Back in the days when there were still things to boast about, the city council erected a sign beside the road at the entrance to the town with the sort of slogan that was popular at the time: “Beartown—Leaves You Wanting More!” The wind and snow took a few years to wipe out the word “More.” Sometimes the entire community feels like a philosophical experiment: If a town falls in the forest but no one hears it, does it matter at all?

To answer that question you need to walk a few hundred yards down toward the lake. The building you see there doesn’t look like much, but it’s an ice rink, built by factory workers four generations ago, men who worked six days a week and needed something to look forward to on the seventh. All the love this town could thaw out was passed down and still seems to end up devoted to the game: ice and boards, red and blue lines, sticks and pucks and every ounce of determination and power in young bodies hurtling at full speed into the corners in the hunt for those pucks. The stands are packed every weekend, year after year, even though the team’s achievements have collapsed in line with the town’s economy. And perhaps that’s why—because everyone hopes that when the team’s fortunes improve again, the rest of the town will get pulled up with it.

Which is why places like this always have to pin their hopes for the future on young people. They’re the only ones who don’t remember that things actually used to be better. That can be a blessing. So they’ve coached their junior team with the same values their forebears used to construct their community: work hard, take the knocks, don’t complain, keep your mouth shut, and show the bastards in the big cities where we’re from. There’s not much worthy of note around here. But anyone who’s been here knows that it’s a hockey town.

Bang.

Amat will soon turn sixteen. His room is so tiny that if it had been in a larger apartment in a well-to-do neighborhood in a big city, it would barely have registered as a closet. The walls are completely covered with posters of NHL players, with two exceptions. One is a photograph of himself aged seven, wearing gloves that are too big for him and with his helmet halfway down his forehead, the smallest of all the boys on the ice. The other is a sheet of white paper on which his mother has written parts of a prayer. When Amat was born, she lay with him on her chest in a narrow bed in a little hospital on the other side of the planet, no one but them in the whole world. A nurse had whispered the prayer in his mother’s ear back then—it is said to have been written on the wall above Mother Teresa’s bed—and the nurse hoped it would give the solitary woman strength and hope. Almost sixteen years later, the scrap of paper is still hanging on her son’s wall, the words mixed up, but she wrote them down as well as she could remember them:

If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway.

All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Amat sleeps with his skates by his bed every night. “Must have been one hell of a birth for your poor mother, you being born with those on,” the caretaker at the rink often jokes. He’s offered to let the boy keep them in a locker in the team’s storeroom, but Amat likes carrying them there and back. Wants to keep them close.

Amat has never been as tall as the other players, has never been as muscular as them, has never shot as hard. But no one in the town can catch him. No one on any team he’s encountered so far has been as fast as him. He can’t explain it; he assumes it’s a bit like when people look at a violin and some of them just see a load of wood and screws where others see music. Skates have never felt odd to him. On the contrary, when he sticks his feet in a pair of normal shoes he feels like a sailor stepping ashore.

The final lines his mother wrote on the sheet of paper on his wall read as follows:

What you create, others can destroy. Create anyway. Because in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and anyone else anyway.

Immediately below that, written in red crayon in the determined handwriting of a primary school student, it says:

They say Im to little to play. Become good player any way!

Bang.

Once upon a time, Beartown Ice Hockey’s A-team—one step above the juniors—was second-best in the top division in the country. That was more than two decades and three divisions ago, but tomorrow Beartown will be playing against the best once more. So how important can a junior game be? How much can a town care about the semifinal a bunch of teenagers are playing in a minor-league tournament? Not so much, of course. If it weren’t this particular dot on the map.

A couple of hundred yards south of the road sign lies “the Heights,” a small cluster of expensive houses with views across the lake. The people who live in them own supermarkets, run factories, or commute to better jobs in bigger towns where their colleagues at staff parties wonder, wide-eyed: “Beartown? How can you possibly live that far out in the forest?” They reply something about hunting and fishing, proximity to nature, but these days almost everyone is asking themselves if it is actually possible. Living here any longer. Asking themselves if there’s anything left, apart from property values that seem to fall as rapidly as the temperature.

*  *  *

Then they wake up to the sound of a bang. And they smile. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01KG5GQDS
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atria Books; Media Tie-In edition (April 25, 2017)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 25, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 9608 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 430 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #6,746 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #36 in Small Town & Rural Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #63 in Small Town & Rural Fiction (Books)
- #90 in Sports Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 43,719 ratings

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Fredrik Backman

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Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, and two novellas, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer and The Deal of a Lifetime, as well as one work of nonfiction, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World. His books are published in more than forty countries. His next novel, Anxious People, will be published in September 2020. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. Connect with him on Facebook and Twitter @BackmanLand or on Instagram @Backmansk.

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43,719 global ratings

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SB

Couldn’t put it down!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 2, 2023

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I tried this book based on the recommendation of a friend. It hooked me from the first sentence, and I could not put it down. It is definitely relatable to anyone involved in hockey, but also a great read for anyone who likes a good story. Fantastic character development, short yet powerful chapters and a writing style that keeps you wanting to read more. It’s one of the first books I’ve read that didn’t put me to sleep in the beginning, so that says something too haha. Can’t wait to read the rest of the series. In fact, book 2 is arriving today!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 24, 2019

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After the last book mail I got, I had made a To Be Read pile and decided to read the books starting from the top. Beartown by Fredrik Backman was at the bottom of the pile because of its size. When I got disillusioned by a couple of books from the top, I was very tempted to cheat, take it out from the bottom and read it before the other books. After all, this book was written by the same author who wrote A Man Called Ove, and it was sure to be the pick-me-up I needed after reading some very mediocre books.

I'm glad I didn't give in to my impulse. I'm glad I only read it after I had finished the other books in the pile. Infact, I should have waited a couple of more days before reading it. Because I still have a couple of reviews to write, and I sat down to write them too, but this book has completely, utterly left me unable to think of anything else! It has destroyed me. I have begun to question my sanity in not reading the reviews first and being blindsided by this heavyweight of a book.

Beartown is a very small town, becoming smaller by the day, with no prospects and no future, except for the junior ice hockey team. This team is what represents hope for the town, and this team is what the whole town revolves around. The book starts very slowly, as we get to know all the characters. And there are a lot of them, a whole town's worth.
Normally, I give up trying to read a book long before I reach even a 100 pages, if nothing has happened. I don't know what made me go on reading when all I wanted to do was put the book down and forget about it. I'm still not sure if I'm happy about sticking to it. I don't like being so attached to fictional characters that I can feel their pain in my heart. It sucks.

Fair Warning: This book deals with rape and its aftermath.
The rape, when it happens, is shocking and violent, and sadly, echoes so many real-life incidents that you just stop reading for a while and need a moment to absorb it all. This, however, only leaves you feeling angry and wanting justice.

What follows is what is really heart wrenching. For it reflects what every survivor has to go through. When a boy tells her to go to the police, the girl says it doesn't matter because no one will believe her. Because the rapist is a hockey player. And Beartown is a hockey town.

Everything that happens in the book from that point on, is just how small towns, small hockey towns, small hockey towns that have nothing else to look forward to, react when their start player is accused of a crime by a girl. Nothing that happens is out of the ordinary. It is what would happen in any small town in the world where such a crime was committed. And this is what makes it so sad and heartbreaking.

What makes it all bearable is that when a family, already devastated by a tragedy, stands up against a whole town, there are still people who are brave enough to stand with them. Even if they are so few that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand, there is someone who has enough guts to stand up and tell everyone how wrong they are, there is someone who believes the word of the girl over that of the hockey star, there is someone who eventually, at the expense of everything they hold dear, is willing to tell the truth.

This, after all, is also the story of individuals with big hearts and guilty consciences, individuals cut from the same cloth as the rest of the town, but with a different thinking.

In the end, you're left feeling cheated, because there is no neat end to the chain of events that started on that one night. We're given some glimpses of the future, and we know that life has gone on for everyone involved, and to some extent, it seems that justice has been served. Just not in the way you wanted.

Reading this book was a gut wrenching experience for me, and then I found out that there is also a sequel! no. I cannot stand it. I don't know if I can gather enough courage to read through another book like this, but this will definitely remain one of those books that made me break down in tears. I'm almost afraid to think what Fredrik Backman has in store for this little town next.

30 people found this helpful

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RSW Kindle Customer

4 Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 27, 2017

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This contemporary fiction / family drama has been a highly acclaimed bestseller in many countries. The message, clearly, resonates across the globe. It is relatable any place where there are 'haves and have nots,' or over achieving kids with overly competitive parents, or neglected kids, or over indulged kids, or loving parents, or great coaches, or tired teachers, or bullies and victims.

SUMMARY
The book opens with one teenager walking into the woods, pulling out a gun, pointing it at another teenager and pulling the trigger. The rest of the book explains the events leading up to this act.

The book takes place in a small town on the edge of a forest called Beartown. I'm not sure exactly where Beartown is supposed to be located, but I think it's Sweden. The town has a small competitive hockey club which provides a social life as well as a source of pride for the town. Actually, that's an understatement. This town doesn't have a lot going for it at the moment; the local factory has eliminated a lot of jobs, people are moving away, those who stay don't have many employment options and to some people, the club is everything.

The junior hockey team (made up of 16 and 17 years olds) is having an amazing season due, in large part, to their star player Kevin.

Their coach, David, has been grooming them since they were seven years old, training them to become the stars they are today.

Peter, a former Beartown Hockey star who made it to the NHL, returned to Beartown ten years ago with his family to serve as General Manager and turn the club into a national contender. Ten years of hard work has paid off and the team is about to play in they semi-finals for the junior NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!

The town has so much riding on this. They are hoping that if they win the championship, the government will decide to build their new national training center in Beartown. Along with the training center would come more shopping, restaurants, commerce and JOBS. They NEED this. This is their time. The undefeated junior team just needs to make it through two more games.

But, as the reader knows, it's not going to be that simple. We know that something is about to happen which will culminate in one teenager pulling the trigger of a gun on another...

WHAT I LOVED
Wow!!! So much to love! How could you not be riveted by a book with an opening chapter like that? Every time a new character appeared in the book, or when two characters interacted, I obsessively over analyzed the circumstances, looking for clues as to whether or not these characters were involved in the opening scene. Trying to determine if they were the one pointing the gun or the one with the gun pointed at them. Each slight made me read too much into the offended persons reaction. Would that be enough to trigger a tragic chain of events? I couldn't stop theorizing. I needed to know.

I loved the setting; a snowy small town somewhere very far north. I both loved and hated that the country was never officially named. Loved because it gave me yet another thing to obsess over and hated because I never could get a straight answer.

The book cover was LOVELY! The picture of the frozen lake and surrounding town was just what I imagined.

I loved the narrative style. It was almost as if the story was being told orally, from the memory of an observer, with little snippets of wisdom and knowledge of future events which the narrator had witnessed.

The characters were to compelling. They all had so many dimensions. There were several characters I was ready to write off as total 'bad seeds' in their first couple of appearances, who later redeemed themselves. On the flip side, some who initially seemed quite decent disappointed me.

Benji and his family were very interesting; I loved how they very loudly loved each other while simultaneously calling each other out on bad behavior. They were all up in each other's business, they were always cramming themselves into small spaces so they could be together. On the polar opposite is Kevin's family. Cold, controlled, uninvolved. His parents started leaving him alone overnight when he was like twelve years old!! What the heck!!! On the outside, it looked like Kevin had everything; money and every advantage money could buy, intelligence and an excessive amount of talent. But did he really have more than Benji?

There is so much to love in this book, I could go on for days, but I won't.

WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE
Too much hockey detail for me. I'm not anti-hockey, I'm just not obsessed. I understand the author was trying to create a feeling of an entire town living, eating, breathing hockey but it was too much for me. I get being in a town that loves its sports. I live in Texas. It's what we do. I felt like he could have created the feeling in fewer words.

OVERALL
A great book. Touches on my many important topics.

17 people found this helpful

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Jason Meyer

Moments

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 8, 2023

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A number of times in his books, Bachmann refers to the importance of moments that make a lifetime. His writing illustrates some of the most beautiful, profound moments that touch all of his characters. This work reminds me to stand back and take a look at daily moments. My acknowledgment and appreciation of these points in time can only enhance my love of life and the world of which I am a part.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

M. Donovan

Excellent thought provoking read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 21, 2019

Verified Purchase

Although surround an ice hockey obsessed town, once I got into it i found it really very interesting with the main focus on the interplay between different individuals. the more i got into the more i enjoyed it .. looking forward to the follow up next

Amazon Kunde

What the Puck!

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on April 24, 2021

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The author believes he's sharing so many profound thoughts with the reader, but mostly it's just nonsense metaphors like "It wasn't a big thing or a small thing, it was everything". What? What does that even mean? I can only describe it as if Jodi Picoult wrote a whole novel based on a Bruce Springsteen song. But that's doing both Jodi Picoult and Bruce Springsteen a disservice. This was spectacularly bad. Maybe the writing style is less laughably clichéd in Swedish. But I would be surprised. And then there's the Short. Dramatic. Sentences. Which the author ends every chapter with. Eg. "A storm was brewing". "A long marriage is a complicated thing". "Hockey supporters know only heaven or hell". The author is so pleased with these sentences that he sometimes repeats them. In the space of a few pages. But so many readers truly seem to believe they have learned something about human nature from this novel. When in fact the central violent act of this book committed by a boy against a young girl is merely a plot device in order for other male characters to prove their moral worth. The female characters are so "complicated" in this novel. How do we know? Because the author tells us so. "They were both so complicated", he says of Maya and Ana. Oh really? Ever heard of show-don't-tell?

4 people found this helpful

Anjali S

That we love each other

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on May 17, 2018

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 "Community is the fact that we work toward the same goal, that we accept our respective roles in order to reach it. Values is the fact that we trust each other. That we love each other.For me, culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit.” When I started reading this book, I was expecting a warm uplifting story of a small town hockey club like the previous works by this same author. Let me tell you, I was in for quiet a shock. The story begins in a small town called Beartown, which is largely dying due to the lack of oppurtunities and resources. The one thing that holds the town together is the hockey club, which is their pride and joy. The hockey players are idolised and treated like legends. Multiple characters who play a crucial role in the story are introduced in the beginning. We get to have a glimpse of their loves, their dreams, hopes and fears in the initial pages of the book. What follows after that is the incident, that impacts the entire town and shakes it down to its core. Its raw and its heartbreaking. It will test beliefs, loyalties and friendships. “Most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.” The story is told in a matter-of-fact almost detached style and that is what makes it so poignant and heart-rending. But even at the height of despair, there is always an underlying thread of hope weaved through the entire story that makes this book unputdownable. The true beauty of the book lies in that ray of hope which makes you laugh even in the midst of tears. Many serious issues like rape, bullying, small town politics and ostracisation are dealt with a lot of sensitivity and empathy. When I finally turned the last page of this book, it left me with a profound sense of hope which is the best possible thing a book can gift you. I highly, HIGHLY, recommend you to give this book a chance. I promise you, you won't regret it. Meanwhile, I will be counting down the days to the release of its sequel. Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

7 people found this helpful

Shobha Warrier

Beautiful book

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on August 31, 2018

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It all started with A man called Ove and I have been buying his other books too. Though Britt Marie was here and My Grandmother sends her regards and apologies did not satisfy me, Beartown turns out to be my favourite. Okay, i may not place it above A man called Ove but i loved the experience of reading the book though it's disturbing

10 people found this helpful

Snapdragon

Gripping

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on October 23, 2017

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Even if you aren't interested in sport, this book is a compulsive read. Dying Beartown in an inhospitable part of Sweden is fanatical about ice hockey. Ice hockey forms characters, relationships and town identity. When the juniors win their semi-final the town gears up for the final in a major way. What happens next is complicated, and I won't spoil the plot, except to say that it's major, and we get to see a whole town searching its conscience. The characters come from all circumstances in life and the author does a brilliant job of understanding them all, whether rich or poor, foreign or native-born, etc. How they react to the crisis makes for tense reading, and the book is so well-plotted that we get a sense of impending doom without being able to pick who will do what. It's a superb portrait of the psychological aspects of sport and of the ways we react when accusations are flying and sides are taken. The closing of ranks by the powerful we expect, but it becomes more complex than that. We applaud mightily when there are acts of courage and understanding that are unexpected. The book's prime strength is in its portrayal of personality and motivation, and it's also remarkable that we can be presented with so many different and memorable characters so very clearly without getting them mixed up. First class.

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