Hey What's up, you guys? It's Connor, and today I'm going
to be doing a book review on Beartown
by Fredrik Backman. If you
don't know, Fredrik Backman is one of
my favorite authors, and I have read all
of the books and novella that he has
that have been translated into English.
I've also done book reviews on all of them,
and I'll leave those in the card symbol
as well as in a playlist in the
description. You can check them out if
you want to, but today we're talking
about Beartown. I requested and was sent
this book from the publisher in order to
read it and review it for you guys because I
was so excited that is coming out.
But that in no way affects my basically
love for this book. Beartown really
follows just this small Swedish town that
is surrounded by forests. It is a town that
has been degrading and going downhill
for a while now. A lot of people have
lost their jobs. People are moving away
from this town, and not many people are
moving there. And I think one of the
lines in the book is that "if a town is
not growing, it's actually dying", and
that's what Beartown is. It is slowly
dying.
This town is really centered around
hockey, and you don't have to really like
hockey to really love this book or
appreciate the things that talks about
even when it's talking about hockey.
You can easily substitute any other type
of physical activity or hobby that a small
town would collect around so possibly
football in America or soccer in pretty
much every other country. You know what?
I'm just going to read the back of this
book because that is going to give you a
better description than what I'm trying
to do right now. It's been a long time
since the residents of Beartown have felt
like winners. That could change this year
if the teenage boys who make up the junior
ice hockey team can win the national
championship.They have the heads, the
hands, and hearts to do it, but it's what
happens off the ice that will change
this town forever... Dun Dun Dun! And because
it really follows a town, you follow a
lot of different characters. I think you
follow 10-or-something people closely,
and there are some other people that are
just around the fringes. But don't let
that daunt you. It's not very overwhelming
or anything like that. You're definitely
going to know who people are, and how
they're related to each other, and
everything like that. As usual with my book
reviews, I'm gonna go through my pros, go through
my cons, give you my rating; then be
done. My first pro is just going to be
that I love Fredrik Backman's writing.
He is such a good writer. He uses
literary devices and elements so well. I
was just astounded.
I think that something that he uses
particularly well in this novel is the
use of repetition. I get
annoyed when books are very repetitive,
but this book uses repetition perfectly.
So the first line of chapter two - chapter
one is just this one little thing here -
it says "Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang." That
little "Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang." is repeated
throughout the novel, but it's used
with different people and used to
represent different things. I just love
that, and he does that with some other
things as well. Oone chapter it says
marriage is complicated at the very
beginning or something along those lines,
and then in the chapter that certain
things happen. And then at the end it's
like, "A marriage is complicated.", and it
gives such a heavy weight to those words.
I just - I don't know how he did
it.
They also use things like, "Again and
Again and Again" Every time that it pops
up even though it's it's the same
sentence, where it shows up in the
story means different things. And I just
loved how the different repetitions, and
the things that he brought back into the
story, and the same sentences that he
said over and over again always meant
something a little bit different, and it
meant something different for each
character that they showed up alongside.
So just wow! There are so many examples
of the repetition this book that I
absolutely loved and found to just be
fantastic that I wrote down a bunch of
them. But I just decided that I am not
going to spoil you, so uh yeah just look
for to that for yourself. Another pro for this
book is the hockey element. I don't love
hockey. I don't really know how to play
hockey. I don't know all the rules, but
the way that hockey plays a role in this
story is so relatable to pretty much
every small town around. I'm from a small
town, and my town really comes around
football which is a lot of towns in
America. The weight that's put on to the
players of football in high school or to
the players of hockey in this book is
insanely high, but it's so realistic that
these parents and this community have put
so much weight on the shoulders of 17
year olds. I like how real that was and
how I just I know that happens in real
life. They think that if this hockey team
does really well, then it'll bring all of
these other people towards their town
and help their town start to grow again.
That's a crazy amount of pressure to put
on a seventeen-year-old. Another thing I
loved was the characters. They're so real, and
although you don't like all the
characters because how could you just
with what's going on in here. But I just
thought that all the characters were so
well done, so
real, so fleshed out. I really liked how
he did his characters too. At the very
beginning you're given a surface layer
of each character, and I think at first
you really dislike every single
character. I think except for Amat. He's,
like, the only one that you don't dislike.
Him and his mom, Fatima, but for everyone else
you're like, "Dang! They are so annoying!
Why would I even care about this person?"
And then as the story goes along it
just digs a slight bit deeper, and then
a little bit deeper, and then a little
bit deeper, and you find yourself
understanding each character. Although
you don't love all of them,
you definitely understand where they're
coming from. And I don't know at what
point I became so invested in every single
character, and I think that was so well
done because I just didn't even realize
it was happening until after it was done
and I was really invested. The
characterization was incredibly well
done.
No one was just completely morally
correct. They all have rough times. They
all fall down, and it's the ones that
really work hard to be good people that
end up being, like, better people, I guess,
than the other ones. But no one in this
book is perfect, and i love that. There's
a huge theme of competition in this book.
Competition with others but also
competition with yourself, and I think
that the competition with yourself was
the one that was much more important in
this book. And I think that's a thing
just about life - that you have to
realize that being competitive with
yourself is a lose-lose situation
because if you're trying to weigh two
different parts of your life, then one of
them is going to lose and one of them is
going to win. But it's still you, so you
lose.
For instance one of the characters is
having to deal with the fact that she
wants to be a career woman and how the
town really thinks that being a career
woman is basically a bad thing because
she also have to balance being a mom.
She is competing with herself being a
mom and being a career woman, and how
does that work, and who wins in the end if
you're trying to be the best mom but
you're also trying to be the best career
woman. There's got to be a balance, but
she's trying to compete. And it just
doesn't work. And I really like that
throughout this novel there are tons of
characters that are having to go through
the same thing of "Well there's this one
side of me, and there's another side of
me. Which one is the one that will come
out on top kind of thing." As well as
external [competition]. So the hockey team having
to be the other hockey team.It's just all
very competitive. As well as being
competitive, there are also a lot of
parallels that are made. Like, certain
characters will be put alongside another
character, and you can see how
their paths diverge and what could
possibly happen to a person if this
happened versus that happening.
I don't want to go into too much
detail because I don't want to spoil
anything, again, but I just love seeing
how two people can be in the same
position, but because this accident or
this thing happened at this one point in
time, their future is completely different
because of it. I feel like I'm a little bit
all over the place with this review.
That's because I'm gushing really. It's
just a gush basically. Another thing that
I love about this book is that it just
is beautiful. It's just a beautiful book,
and the reason why I think that it's a
beautiful book is that it has a lot of
just simple truths and they don't try to
make them more complicated than they
have to be. If you're describing a
flower, you can just call it a flower. You
don't have to say that it's a
combination of stamens, and anthers,
and pedals, and sepals, and ovaries, and
whatever. You can just call it a flower,
and that's what this book kind of does.
He has a very simple way of getting the
point across, but if you are invested when
you're reading it, you get so much more
out of it. I love that. It's very
easy to tell if something is good or
evil, but even still with those lines
drawn, life is still complicated.
This book has a bit of a darker tone
than any of his other books. I mean, I
know A Man Called Ove is about a guy
who's trying to kill himself, but in this
I feel like Ove is really trying to
find a reason to live now that his wife
has passed away. In this one it's more
of a dark feeling. A lot of people in
this book seems isolated, and so it's a
bit darker. Just know that going
in.
I really enjoyed it. I really liked the
change in tone, and I really liked how it
was done it this northern town that
doesn't have a whole lot of sunlight
throughout all of the year.
It fits the story, and it fit the
characters. Just know going in that this
book is also going to have some triggers
as well. One of which is that there's a lot of
teasing and bullying, so if that's going
to affect you in a negative way. It
doesn't depict those things as good, but
there are some instances where there are
teasing and bullying and what's called
locker-room talk where there are crass
jokes about homosexuality or women or
other groups of people. Those are in
there, and they're not depicted as being
right. But it's realistic because that
does happen in locker rooms, and I liked
how it was handled in this. But if thats
going
to trigger you, then just know that is
going on in here. Some of the kids in this are
really picked on at school, and a lot of
parents are okay with it.
There's definitely some commentary on
that being a bad thing, and locker-room
talk is stupid, and making crude and
disgusting comments about women is dumb
and shouldn't be done. But they are in
here.
The main thing that affects this town
can also be triggering, but I don't want
to spoil it because I think at the
beginning of the book - for the first half
or so - you're like, "Oh shoot! What's gonna
happen?" You're trying to figure out who's
going to do the bad thing;
What is going to actually happen. You
know, you're you're trying to figure it
out, and the tension in the beginning of
the book is just building and building
and building to that point. So I don't want to
give away that point to people that are
not triggered by things, but after I'm
done talking about the book, I will tell
you what the event is that really
affects this town so that you can know
going in what it is or if it's going to
trigger you or not so you can avoid the
book is if it is going to. So stay tuned
to the end if you have triggers. Another
thing I like about Fredrik Backman's
books is that he always does two
different timelines - usually in his books.
For instance, in My Grandmother Asked Me
to Tell You She's Sorry there's the
timeline of the main character who's an
eight-year-old girl as a younger girl
and then the current time period. A Man
Called Ove follows Ove in the current
time as well as Ove in the past. In
this book he did something a little bit
different. There's the current time
period, but then there's also the future.
And so in the book it'll be like, "She
will never forget this for the rest of
her life", and so you know this specific
thing will be affecting her in the
future even if it doesn't right now. Ten
years in the future is really what this
book goes for, so it will say, "In ten
years he will look back on this memory
and think 'this'", so I liked seeing the
future
come back into the present and explain
why the present is so important to
these people, and to this town, and in
general. I think that the future
being the other timeline that he follows
really adds to the tension and the
building of this novel until the big
event happens because you're like, "Oh
shoot! This character is being affected
this way in 10 years. Why? And what's
going to happen in this timeline?" So yeah
really like the two timeline things the
future and the present. I also like that
Fredrik Backman's books are
diverse. One of the main characters that you
follow is gay, so you follow him as he is
trying to come to terms with that and
what that means for him and for his
future. As well as it follows a boy named Amat
who is living with his single mother, and they're
refugees from war that is happening. So
the people of color in this very white
environment, and you see the
exploration of them being of color and
how that affects their life being in
Beartown and everything like that. So
yeah, I really like the diversity and
exploration of what it means to be
someone different, someone other in a
town where everyone is the same. There
are so many more things that I loved
about this book, but I honestly just
don't have time to talk about it. I feel
like I've already talked your ear off
enough about all the things that I love
about this book. I don't have any cons, so
I can't go through any of those because
I literally love this book so much. I've
already pre-ordered the book. I got it
from Barnes & Noble because they have
signed editions of it, so i wanted to get
a signed edition. I gave it five stars
obviously. I think it is incredible. I
really recommend you pre-ordering it, or
getting it from the library, or just
somehow getting your hands on this story.
It is that good.
I honestly don't even know if its review
made any sense, but if you liked it,
please give it a big thumbs up and
comment down below if you're planning on
reading Beartown. Have you read any of
Fredrik Backman's other books? Are you
interested now? Or if you want to talk to
you about this book you can message me
on Twitter or message me on Goodreads. I
just want to talk about it.
Anything else you want me to know, leave
it down below, and I will talk to you
guys next time.
Bye!
So if you don't want to hear what the
big event is that happens in this book,
the event that happens off the ice
that will change the town forever,
click off. The only reason why I'm saying
it right now is because some people
have triggers and really would like to
know what it is that is bad that happens.
And so the big event that happens is that
one of the characters is raped, and it
goes into a decent amount of detail
about what happens during that situation.
And obviously in this book it's not
portrayed as a good thing, but it's
portrayed in a realistic way. And how
people respond to someone being raped in
a small town is very realistic ,so all
those things might be triggering to
people that are triggered by rape. So I
just wanted to put that out there, and
let people know if that is going to
affect their reading experience or not. Again
I definitely recommend this book! Please,
please check it out!
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