Beartown
By Fredrik Backman
Published: Atria Books, 2016
Pages: 433
Genre: Contemporary
"Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason."
About the book
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, build generations ago by the workingmen who founded this town. And 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 semifinals, 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.
A victory would send star player Kevin on to a brilliant professional future in the NHL. It would mean everything to Amat, a scrawny fifteen-year-old treated like an outcast everywhere but on the ice. And it would justify the choice that Peter, the team's general manager, and his wife, Kira, made to return to his hometown and raise their children in this beautiful but isolated place.
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semifinal match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Hers is a story no one wants to believe, since doing so would mean the end of the year. Accusations are made, and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no one unaffected.
Review
Beartown is a small, hockey obsessed town located in the middle of a forest. In a way, I can connect to Beartown; I live in a small town located in the middle of corn fields, and the high school football team is a major focal point in the community. I've seen firsthand how a teensy town in the middle of nowhere that no one has ever heard of can band together and accomplish something great - that's the story of Beartown.
A star hockey player, who is counted on to win finals and thus help a dying community thrive, is accused of rape and the entire town goes ape shit. I feel like there's many stories following this plot; a small town shaken by a principal player getting accused of rape. Beartown approaches this differently, though, with multiple viewpoints and glimpses into the future.
The writing is brilliant, exhibit A:
People sometimes say that sorrow is mental but longing is physical. One is a wound, the other an amputated limb, a withered petal compared to a snapped stem. Anything that grows closely enough to what it loves will eventually share the same roots. We can talk about loss, we can treat it and give it time, but biology still forces us to live according to certain rules: plants that are split down the middle don't heal, they die.
And I want to point out this simile, which invoked a very interesting image into my head; I actually stopped to read this multiple times:
The president is sitting at his desk eating a sandwich the way a German shepherd would try to eat a balloon filled with mayonnaise.
Beartown is very character-driven, I felt each of the characters deep into my soul. Even the characters I hated I still understood their feelings and behaviors.
I don't have much else to say except this novel is great and worth reading!
MY RATING
No comments:
Post a Comment