"The people who live here are tough, we’ve got the bear in us, but we’ve taken blow after blow for a long time now."

There is a universality about small towns worldwide and the youth sports teams they sponsor and cheer on. This story takes place in a very small back-in-the-woods town in Sweden called Beartown and tells of their youth hockey teams. But it could be anywhere, which is one of the points the author was trying to get across, I do believe. Two areas that come to mind are: Texas and football, and Indiana and basketball. One of my all-time favorite movies that I've watched innumerable times is HOOSIERS and this book just became one of my favorite books.

You don't have to be a hockey fan to enjoy this story because it is a story about people just as much as it's about hockey.

This is an in-depth look at small town mentality, especially a failing small town, where the jobs are drying up and the young people move away to find jobs. When this small town has a chance to excel at something, in this case, hockey, it gives the people in the town something to cheer on, feel good about, something to lend hope to the future, rather than dwelling on their failing lives.

I can't write clearly enough to say just how much I loved this book. I grew up in a lot of small towns and I FELT this book. The depictions of the different characters were perfect. The storyline was hard hitting. And I liked that the author tied up the loose ends at the end of the story rather than leaving it open-ended.

I highly recommend this story to small-towners, sports fans, parents, older children of those parents and anyone that wants to read a hard-hitting, emotionally up and down winner of a book.

I received this book from Atria Books through Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased review.

Thank You to Atria Books for providing me with an advanced copy of Fredrik Backman's novel, Bear Town, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- In the Swedish countryside, deep in the forest, exists a town that's just barely managing to survive. Beartown has been economically depressed for decades and its population keeps dropping. Ice hockey is the only thing that gives the town hope.

Beartown finally has a great team and if they can win the finals, the town has hope that money will pour back into their community. The weight of this win, rests of the talents of high school students, boys that have been training their whole lives for this opportunity. It's not as simple as winning a game. There are deep divisions between the coaches, the general manager of the hockey club, and the sponsors. These issues are pushed to the forefront when a star player is accused of raping the daughter of the general manager. What will happen when the loyalties and traditions of a small, fragile town are put to the test?

LIKE- I read Backman's, A Man Called Ove, a few years ago, and since then, Backman has become one of my favorite contemporary writers. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read his latest novel, Bear Town.

Admittedly, I don't know much or care much about ice hockey, but that is not a prerequisite to reading Bear Town. Although the game and game terminology is used, Backman explains it in terms that even someone unfamiliar with the sport, can understand. The biggest thing to know is that the entire town is obsessed with the sport, basically seeing it as a way to pull their town out of poverty. The parents of the players, sacrifice everything to make sure that their kid has every opportunity. It's this sacrifice that makes the adults act irrationally.

The boys, (there is no female hockey team in Beartown) who are the best players, are essentially elevated to a god-like status and are able to get away with bad behavior. Although the story is set in Sweden, the same attitude towards sports and talented players exists here in America and will feel familiar. 

The best part of Bear Town is the intensity and suspense. The first line of the novel tells us that one person has a gun to the forehead of another person, but we do not know how that scene will play out until the end of the novel. Backman kept me guessing the whole way and that introduction of danger was enough to send a ripple through-out the entire novel. What's interesting is there isn't a huge amount of plot to the story, it primarily involved this major game, a celebration party, and the aftermath of the rape, yet the story never drops in suspense. Bear Town is character, not plot driven.

What works so well is Backman's well-developed characters. Bear Town doesn't have one main character, it has several, and by the end of the story, I felt that I understood each of them. What Backman has done, is he has made the entirety of the town the main character. The theme of being a team or part of a collective is key to the story. There is a huge sense of surprise with regard to how the characters act in response to the rape. I didn't anticipate some of the reactions, yet they all made sense within the framework of each character. The ending is beautiful and hopeful. The result is a poignant, thought-provoking, and surprising novel: Backman's storytelling at its best.

DISLIKE- Nothing. If you're not familiar with Backman, go buy all of his novels, right now!

RECOMMEND- Yes!!! Bear Town is darker and heavier than Backman's previous novels, but it's brilliant. Brilliant and important.

You don't have to be a hockey fan to enjoy BEARTOWN, you only have to sit back and enjoy the addictive story telling of Fredrik Backman.
Once again I could not put the book down, Backman is truly skilled in the art of making you totally engaged in his story.
Five stars all the way

From the publisher: The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.

In Beartown, the latest from Swedish publishing sensation Fredrik Backman, the residents of a small community, struggling economically, have one bright spot in their lives - the junior hockey team. This puts immense pressure on the teenaged members of that team and the adults around them.

Beartown is a slow-moving novel of great feeling that builds to big moments, then backs away and gets thoughtful. It's about sports, friendship, rape, societal expectations, right vs. wrong, female strength, and community. It features some fascinating, multi-faceted characters that felt like real people. I loved it.

Beartown was not always easy to read, but I had trouble stepping away from it. The plot isn’t original: Something Happens before the big game that threatens the team’s success and pits the townspeople against one another. I guessed much of what was coming all along the way. The backgrounds of the characters aren’t particularly original – the bad boy whose father killed himself when he was a boy, the recent immigrant and his cleaning woman mother, the hometown hero returned in middle age to work for his old team. But Backman works those standard character descriptions into something More. The strength of the characters and the narrative make up for any deficiencies in plot. This is the kind of book where you get to know the characters so well you find yourself wondering about them long after you've finished the book.

I loved Backman’s first book, A Man Called Ove, but wasn’t too impressed with his third, Britt-Marie Was Here. While I enjoyed Ove more, Beartown is the better book. It really shows how much Backman has matured as a writer. Backman has a very specific writing style, slow, repetitive, and deliberate, and I’m sure it puts some people off. But I felt much of the writing in Beartown was masterful. Beartown reminds me in good ways of J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. Both are hard to read, and both showcase well developed characters that you come to care about and shine a spotlight on societal issues. (And Beartown is a lot shorter than The Casual Vacancy!)

I would give Beartown 4.5 stars instead of 5, mostly for the comfortable ending (although the ending satisfied me as a reader). I think this would make a great book discussion title. I recommend it for fans of Backman and of thoughtful fiction featuring developed characters.

Beartown comes out on April 25 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library in multiple formats.

Fredrik Backman is a master at finding the words to make everyday life open up to something so much larger than you thought it might be. In Beartown, he has written a deeply compelling story, completely unlike his previous novels. No old codgers turning into sweethearts in this one. No humor. This is a story of a very small and isolated hockey town, where winning means everything. Winning can mean life or death for the whole town, not just the kids. It’s the story of character, and making choices, some of them devastating, and how one night can change your whole life. It’s the story of good people and bad people and good parents and bad parents and doing what is right vs doing whatever it takes just so you can WIN. It drives home a few repetitive themes, one of which is that your children will become what you always tell them they are or will be. Many thanks to Atria Books for granting my wish to read this on NetGalley. 4.5 stars for this stunner. Fredrik Backman, I will read anything you write! High recommend!

I've enjoyed all of Backman's novels, Ove was a fantastic, bittersweet debut that until now, in my opinion, he hasn't bettered. Britt Marie was similar, skimming a dark and light side with ease, touching on the sport that here takes over the story.

And now Beartown shows us a mature and darker writer (not that his previous work was immature), who encompasses universal themes in the small confines of a forest-set town, a community focused on and obsessed with the local ice hockey team, and just what can happen and how rifts (and wounds) can open up when the balance shifts and one incident can send it all spiralling, exposing the faults and prejudices of the seemingly jovial townspeople.

I didn't know the plot, only that I was going to read the latest Backman novel. He manages to instantly transport you to his northern-set world, a cold place full of a variety of ice hockey enthusiasts and obsessives, the coaches, the players, the parents, the fans. Being uninitiated into the world of the sport will not matter, this is a story about people, about actions, and about ultimately, doing the right thing.

The narrative style means we see inside the minds and lives of numerous Beartown residents, never feeling one is a protagonist as many feature as important aspects of the story, and it's the overview of the town and townsfolk that give it what is becoming Backman's signature style.

There are some quite distressing moments (not hugely graphic) of violence, it's not the wryly funny book that Backman has given us in the past, but it is a deep and thoughtful one. It is well structured so the main event of the story takes place quite a way in, after character and setting have been nicely established and it looks like hockey itself is the main protagonist. The reactions to the central event are realistic, unfortunately, and well explored.

Friendship, family, love of sport, team and community, all are themes that this book delves into. It ended well, I felt vindicated in my own feelings and in what I hoped would be the resolution, and it was well wrapped up so the multiple characters all featured and had their own conclusions covered.

A powerful read, starting slowly, Backman gets better and better.

With thanks to Netgalley for the advance e-copy.

This is one of those books that seems to grow sweeter as the days pass after you finish it. Backman has a real gift writing characters and getting the fragility of the human spirit right. This tale highlights moral failure, coming of age and the dangers of crowd mentality. Thank goodness there was one who dared to stand up and speak the truth.

Even if you don't know hockey you'll get pulled into the world of hockey and the beautiful country of Sweden. Very satisfying read.

Whatever happens to the ice hockey team happens to the whole town on the edge of the woods. Jobs have disappeared, and tiny Beartown is gasping its last breath. Years ago a hockey rink was built by the men who worked in the factory, and hockey has become Beartown's salvation, but it may also exact a huge price upon everyone who lives there. The junior ice hockey team is readying to compete in the national semifinals and the hopes of the whole town are tied up with the players and their skates.

I really have almost zero interest in sports, but have loved several of Fredrik Backman's previous novels, so even though I thought it was about hockey, I was anxious to read his newest, Beartown. Hockey does figure largely in this novel, but the genius in Backman's book is how well he writes the stories of the characters that play hockey and live in Beartown. I was amazed that Backman could make me care about hockey enough to be totally immersed in the practices, games, and their outcomes, but what he really made me care about is the characters, their lives, and stories.

People like Peter, the general manager of the hockey club, Kira, his wife, and Maya his daughter. Sune, the coach of Beartown's A-team since Peter was a boy, but who is now on the verge of being fired. Kevin, star hockey player, golden son of a wealthy family whose expectations of Kevin become more important then Kevin himself. Benji, Amat and his mother are part of the whole host of people who live and play hockey in Beartown, and each one of their stories and their interactions is remarkable and well-told.

Hockey is the star in Beartown itself, but Backman’s characters are the stars of Beartown the novel. The story can be dark, but the love, sacrifice, teamwork, friendship, and family that Backman writes so well are what make this such a compelling read. I loved A Man Called Ove and Britt-Marie was Here, but with Beartown, Backman has matured and improved upon his successful formula of writing about a quirky character to something even more wonderful. This is his best book yet, and may be one of the best books I read in 2017.

My clumsy use of Google translate has produced this wonderful news from Mr. Backman's blog post of March 24: (http://www.fredrikbackman.com/2017/03...)

"Bear City" came out last fall, it is probably the most personal I have written and definitely the most difficult. It is out there in the big pocket now comes in standard paperback in a few months. In late August, I give out the sequel. It will be called “Vi mot er” (We Are Against You) and set during six months after the "Bear City".

I can hardly wait!

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5. This book is about society and good vs. evil and right vs. wrong. I loved the many perspectives of this book and the character development was amazing. I'm not a huge fan of hockey but appreciated the role it played in Beartown. There were many things I loved about this story and I am glad I took my time reading it to fully understand it. I am surprised at the scope of the Author Backman. I loved Ove, the curmudgeon, but also appreciate the thoughtfulness of Beartown. There are two (I know he has written more)very different books from a talented author. Thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read this book. These characters will stick with me and I anticipate this book to be a bestseller!

"Beartown" is a complete departure from Backman's previous novels and I absolutely loved it. This book starts off making you think this is going to be about a small town and their hockey team finally turning things around for the better. But then it takes a turn that brilliantly examines small town life, where everyone knows everybody and they all have a story to tell, along with opinions about each other. This was such a complex and emotional look at how people act when everything they know and believe is challenged, the power of belonging, loyalty and tradition, and the love of family and friends. Every character examined in this story left a powerful impression on me, and the topic is so timely in this day and age. A must read for fans of Backman as well as his first time readers.

I thoroughly enjoyed Beartown by Fredrik Backman. It' a novel about freindship, community, hockey, marriage, loss, grief, and so much more. Set in the small Swedish hamlet, Beartown, the focus is on the town;s inhabitants, specifically those affiliated with the Beartown Hockey Club: the Junior (High School) team, the General Manager, the sponsors, and all the families related to them. We learn the histories, the fears, and the hopes of all of them, to varying degrees. The wonderful use of language and thought makes the book a joy to read.

My one 'beef' would be somewhat melodramatic chapter endings which tipped off (to me) coming events a bit too much. Sentences like "In hindsight Kira would wish a thousand times over that she had made her daughter stay home" and "That's the last time they see eachother in their childhood. That ends tonight" These don't totally spoil the outcome, but I had the feeling that if this had been an audiobook, I would have expected to hear the dramatic scene changing music at these points.

Still, the book does have some twists, and it's a great study of community, how privilege is exerted, granted, expected, and taken away. I know I will be thinking about the interactions, the decisions, the personalities and the consequences for quite some time. I highly recommend it.

With thanks to Simon & Schuster, as well as the author, Fredrick Backman, for the Advanced Reader Copy. This title goes on sale on April 25th, 2017.

This book is intense. It's dark. It's unlike Backman's now famous <i>A Man Called Ove </i>. The story centers around the small, failing town called Beartown, and it's obsession with hockey including those who play it, support it and those who are totally and dangerously entrenched in it. For whatever reason, Backman's books take me a while to get into. They're always a slow start for me, but the payoff is always worth it. <i>Beartown</i> was even more so because I don't have any interest in hockey. However, as with all his books, I'm so glad I hung on because it is a really wonderful and completely gutting story. It's a big departure from Backman's normal feel good books, but it's a very successful change. I'm glad to see the author breaking out of his comfort zone. The characters in this book are complicated, imperfect and entirely human.

I will say that at times it does feel a little too heavy handed with the emotional intensity. There were times I had to stop reading for a while because it was too upsetting/too intense/too exhausting. That said, it's my favorite book of the year so far. The plot and characters are so well developed, and the issues at the heart of the novel are timely. I have no doubt that we'll be seeing a film version of this book in a few years.


Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

No rating DNF at 20%
I love hockey...my son place ice hockey so the blurb about this small hockey loving town caught my eye.
Unfortunately I don't know if it's the author's writing style but I could not get into this at all.
I picked up this book several times and nothing caught my attention.
I could see how readers would like his style but descriptions were too lengthy and there was just no attention grabbing action. :(

Beartown is a novel that stays with you long after you finish reading it.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like 'Beartown' when I read the blurb, even though I've loved every Fredrik Backman book I've read so far. Was I really going to like a book based around ice hockey? But 'Beartown' is so much more than that. At its heart is a story about real people and what makes them tick, their dreams and fears and how everything we do has an impact on those around us.

Brilliantly written as always, Fredrik Backman has done it yet again. There is something truly magical about his writing and I look forward to reading whatever he comes up with next. A fantastic and enchanting 5 stars.

A link to my full review will be added nearer to publication date.

This was my first book by Fredrik Backman but it will not be my last. I enjoyed reading this book and I am okay with the several hours of sleep I lost by reading this during the week and staying up late saying repeatedly, "okay, just one more chapter!"

Beartown is a place where hockey keeps people excited, even when they have little else to be excited about. The high school hockey players are treated like celebrities, including one in particular who is undoubtedly headed toward a professional career, after giving Beartown it's best chance at a championship in decades.

Beartown is a difficult to place to live when you're different and don't fit in. The novel shows us a glimpse of how hard life is when you feel like you don't fit in, and how hard life is when you have Beartown in your blood.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! Just when I thought I couldn't love Fredrik Backman any more, he wows me Beartown. I couldn't put it down, lost sleep, laughed, cheered, cried, and felt like I was right there in Beartown too.. It is "meatier" than his previous novels, with numerous complex characters and heart-wrenching story lines that weave the characters lives together to leave the reader wondering how Backman can top this in his next novel. Bravo!

Beartown is a small, dying town where everyone struggles to survive. But, they do have a junior hockey team that just might make the state finals and the whole town is relying on them to bring Beartown back to life. Hockey is everything and star players go on to the professional teams and those who don't become mechanics and shopkeepers. How far will a town go to support its team before losing its whole identity? The longtime coach tells the team's general manager, "most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”

A beautifully told story about human nature in dealing with adversity that could apply to anyone, anywhere.

Backman gives a different tone to Beartown. It feels more heartfelt and realistic.