Penguin Beartown

"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 : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So many themes like camaraderie, loyalty, friendships, trauma, family values, faulty individuals, long term and long lastinf impact of decisions are explored beautifully with hockey as a glue.. It could have been about any game what remains with you is all those themes and so mamy facets of human nature that you knew existed but never articulated such masterfully by anyone. A GEM..!!

"𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧" It's a story of a small town in a large Swedish Forest. The story seems to revolve around hockey but has been dealt with other serious aspects of life too. Bcz of the geographical location the town was facing an economic crisis and somehow town people believed the only way of survival is Hockey. But before anything good could occur in the ice hockey rink, disaster happened outside of it. I wonder how many brain cells do a man need to comprehend the simple meaning of "NO". No offense to anyone here. An impulsive and brutal action of Kevin left Maya and her family vulnerable and broken. "𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫, 𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬. 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐦, 𝐢𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐬." The character building is so compelling that after some point of time you start living in the beartown itself. "𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧. 𝐄𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞." I am shocked that people turned blind-eye to the barbaric act committed in the town so easily. They all justified their act by saying "It's not our business". Still processing that in the modern world whose foundation is Liberty, Freedom and Democracy, girls are still being labelled as sluts, whore or bitches. You know whenever this happens, we as a woman fail to fulfill the hopes and expectations of those women who laid the foundation of FEMINISM. "𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐦 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐨 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬." I must say the author has a way with the words. You would feel like a silent visitor of the beartown while reading it. The characters, i personally got attached to Benji- you have my heart❤️ Amat- shown the strength💗 Ana- everyone deserves a friend like her Ramona- killer, torch bearer. Holger and I are so proud of you Old Lady. Highly recommended. Check TWS.

“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?” “Beartown” is a story of a small town where people are obsessed with Ice Hockey and much more than that. As a community what keeps us connected? A shared view? Maybe love for a game? It’s a story about hope, desire, community, anger, jealousy, loss and much more. It’s about various problems in the society, like from community pressure(peer pressure), to homophobia, to rape culture, to how we treat people, to choosing between loyalty and morality. The book will force you to look into your morals, what you believe, whom do you idolize. It is definitely one of the emotional roller coaster books I have read. You hate how things turn out, you scream at them, you love them, you cry with them and moreover you live with them. What I loved most about the book is how Backman developed his characters. I mean I should have expected this after Anxious People. The past connections, their feelings, thoughts, he has described everything so beautifully. I highly recommend this book to those who haven’t read this already. I have already started the sequel to this but like any other Backman book, you just can’t predict how the story is going to unfold. “Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”

This is an absolutely fabulous book. The start does build slowly as other reviews state but this is so you can fully appreciate the characters, the uniqueness of the situations and the emotions. I read the book in short sections so that I could give it my full attention and absorb the story. It is a roller coaster ride and not at all predictable. I loved the looking back in ten year references, sometimes it helped to ease my concerns for the people that had become so real to me. I want to read on and to spread the word.

best

I'm not sure I will recover from this book. Beautifully written, the author has a way like no other to make you feel every emotion. You'll become a part of Beartown and some characters will hold a special place in your heart only to break it when you least expect it. Check the TW - there is a difficult part to read in this book.

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.

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes much easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple.” Wow. This book HITS. I found it to be a slow start and I felt like I was being pelted with different characters that I could hardly keep straight for awhile there, once I got past that I was so completely engaged in the town, its people, and the love of hockey. And it becomes a lot easier to remember everyone when you realize who the key players are 🙂 Beartown tackles a lot of really tough topics, and shows both the good and bad sides of humanity and community. This is a book that makes you think, but it doesn’t preach at you. It just makes really good points along with a really solid character study that sucks you in as you experience the highs and lows of a junior hockey team who has played together for a decade and all the people in the town who support them. Everyone has different reactions to the violent event, and it’s both heartbreaking and hopeful to see how it all plays out. I found the writing style really intriguing, if a bit hard to keep up with at times. It switches between the more traditional third person dialogue-style writing of character interactions and the omniscient-narrator style writing sharing a scene as someone watching from the sidelines. In some cases, we don’t even learn the names of characters integral to the story. It’s an interesting approach, and unlike anything I’ve read. Don’t dismiss this as only for hockey fans! Hockey is integral to the story, of course, but this is just a beautiful, wise story about overcoming challenges and horrors, and standing up for what you think is right. I will never forget this one, definitely has that five-star feeling!