Published by Simon & Schuster on 25 Apr 2017
Goodreads | Amazon
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 traumatised and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.
Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
I wasn't that intrigued by this book from the blurb, but this book was so hyped on bookstagram, and some people said you didn't have to like hockey to enjoy the story, so I decided to give it a shot to see if it was all that. Given the reviews, I had a feeling this would be a book about, if not hockey, then about people and relationships.
All adults have days when we feel completely drained. When we no longer know quite what we spend so much time fighting for, when reality and everyday worries overwhelm us and we wonder how much longer we're going to be able to carry on. The wonderful thing is that we can all live through far more days like that without breaking than we think. The terrible thing is that we never know exactly how many.
The blurb was pretty accurate in its description, but it missed on mentioning the part about a jock committing sexual assault. (This topic is eerily familiar, and I immediately thought of the Stanford rape case.) This didn't happen until partway through the book, but it's central to the story, so I'm risking this spoiler! Also, maybe some people will find this a helpful trigger warning.
The story arc reminded me a lot of Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng; both start out slowly, a disruptive event happens partway through (which, for the record, is mentioned in Little Fires Everywhere's blurb, so I feel like I can do the same for Beartown), and the rest of the book deals with the repercussions.
The first page of Beartown got me hooked, but then my momentum trailed off. I found the slow start to Beartown difficult to get through for two main reasons:
First, lots of characters were introduced at the get go and the narrater switched between them quickly. It took me awhile to get my bearings and I wasn't attached to any one character until much later.
Second, I didn't buy into the town's hockey culture and I rolled my eyes at how dramatic everyone was about hockey. I understand that there are sports fanatics out there and that athletes are treated like gods (just look at high school, college, and professional sports), but I didn't care for reading about the minutiae of hockey politics (for those who've read the book: Sune's resignation was really dragged out, imo...), and the egos of the hockey players were almost maddening. The locker room talk was painful to read.
That was probably the point, so perhaps I should be giving points for that instead of docking them, but at least for me, the execution was so blatant to the point of being contrived, and the subsequent events that transpired became less poignant.
Another peeve was the overuse of universal statements, which I found contrived as well. I like how this reviewer put it: "He has a large cast of rotating characters and each character has a brief mini story arc that often (too often for me) concludes with the equivalent of a Jack Handey 'Deep Thought' or a grave pronouncement that is contrived to make you nod knowingly at the author's wisdom." Some excerpts I noted were:
- "There are two things that are particularly good at reminding us how old we are: children and sports."
- "That's both a big and small thing. Knowing that there are people who will never abandon you."
- "The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life... apart from moments?"
- "The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple."
- "How big is the world when you're twelve years old? Both infinite and infinitesimal."
- "Sometimes life doesn't let you choose your battles. Just the company you keep."
- "Because in the end that's all anyone can ask of another person. That we are prepared to admit that we don't know everything."
Most reviews I've seen have given Beartown 5 stars, and though they agree that it's a slow burn, they sing nothing but praise. The important and relevant issue of sexual assault resonated deeply with many people. I personally enjoyed this story but found a lot of noise to sift through. If you're intrigued by this story (or the hype, like I was), I would still recommend you to try it out and see for yourself!
