Beartown by Fredrik Backman– 432 pages
Book Blurb:
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever-encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is 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. Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is 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, leaving no resident unaffected.
My Review: 5 stars
Beartown was an absolutely beautiful book that examines people in a small-town community with a hockey team as its heartbeat. I’m a fan of some, but not all, of Backman’s books. This one got repeated five-star reviews, and was raved about by hundreds on my Facebook page, but still, I just didn’t think it would interest me. Perhaps if I’d read it sooner, I would not have finished it because it didn’t grab me from the start. It definitely took a bit to become invested and man, when it does, it ends up taking your breath away. Reading it now, long after release date, gave me the foreknowledge to keep reading past the first eighth of the book. So very glad I got to read and enjoy this story.
I know very little about hockey, and care about it even less. I promise you, don’t let that scare you away from the book. What makes the town tick is hockey, but what makes the story whole, are the people. Backman has a knack for developing meaningful and relatable characters. They are built slowly and carefully so the reader has a vivid picture of each of them. There are many, many characters in this book, which also means a ton of relationships between them. We watch these characters deal with love, hate, class status, guilt, choosing sides, tension, compassion, hard work, sacrifice, skill, politics, small town gossip, an unspeakable crime, music, sexuality and growing up in a small town.
On the topic of growing up, the author has an incredible way of zeroing into the psyche of these young boys, the team mentality, and their mindset as they grow into young men. Their role models are slim, basically they have coaches and/or fathers figures, that’s it. Very few books in my library have done this well, but this one hit the mark. I found it thought provoking and wanted to discuss it with others. Actually, there’s a ton to talk about and I highly recommend this for book club discussions.
Quotes I liked:
Never trust people who don’t have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”
-“Another morning comes. It always does. Time always moves at the same rate, only feelings have different speeds. Every day can mark a whole lifetime or a single heartbeat, depending on who you spend it with.”
-“Words are not small things.”
-“A simple truth, repeated as often as it is ignored, is that if you tell a child it can do absolutely anything, or that it can’t do anything at all, you will in all likelihood be proven right.”
-“You never stop being scared of falling from the top, because when you close your eyes you can still feel the pain from each and every step of the way up.”
– “Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”
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I’m with you, I absolutely loved this. I do like hockey, but this is a book with hockey in it, not a hockey book, and not a sports book, so that shouldn’t turn anyone away. This was my first Fredrik Backman, and I’m looking forward to reading more.
Glad you enjoyed as much as I did!