Book Review - Beartown by Fredrik Backman


Image result for beartown
Title: Beartown
Author: Fredrik Backman
Publication Date: April 25th, 2017
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 456 pages
Rating: 4/5 stars
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Goodreads 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 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 Thoughts:
I have a tendency to go into books without knowing anything about them, and every so often that results in a book catching me completely off-guard. That's certainly the case with Beartown. I went in expecting an underdog story about the sleepy hockey town no one believed in, and instead I got a deeply unsettling but ultimately very human story of mob mentality and rape culture.  

There's something about the way that Backman writes his characters that really resonates with me. First with grumpy old Ove, and now with the residents of Beartown, Backman has succeeded in writing characters that are simultaneously deeply unlikable and heartrendingly human.  Every single character in this novel is flawed. They don't always take the moral high road, they aren't always good people, and some of them are downright disgusting human beings. But they're real and the reader can't help but feeling for them.

Some parts of this novel are extremely difficult to read. Even more emotionally jarring than the rape itself is the town's treatment of the victim afterwards. I found myself literally gritting my teeth in rage at one point because of how horribly the adults of Beartown were handling the situation. About how the word of a male witness was worth more than the testimony of the female victim. How it was "political" and all about hockey. However, Backman handles the subject with tact and delicacy. He never makes light of the topic, and though his scenes are sometimes infuriating, once again his human touch makes them bearable. 

Really the only reason this isn't getting a full five stars from me is the ending. It felt rushed and honestly like most of the conflict from the novel was brushed under the rug. There's some evidence of character growth, but overall it doesn't feel like Beartown learned much from the experience. However, knowing that there is a sequel, I'm willing to withhold judgement on that last point until I've read the follow-up novel. 

Beartown is a beautifully written novel, one that grabs hold of the reader's heart from the very first pages and refuses to let go. The author skillfully handles the incredibly sensitive subject matter and his incredible gift for writing deep characters makes this a must-read.

**Look for my review of Us Against You in the coming weeks!**
 

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