Some of these kids are so good they are recruited to professional hockey. It is the crushing isolation and the economic loss killing the little town that seems to force the only claim to fame it possesses-a junior ice hockey team extremely good at winning. In the US, the family dropped the extra “S” that denoted the family name as Anders sons). Of course, I loved that it is located in a tiny community in a deeply forested area of Sweden where one of the names of the major characters is Andersson since my grandmother was 100% Swedish and we still have distant relatives located there about six miles from the North Sea (if I’ve remembered it correctly. As others have noted, however, it is a great deal more-my problem was in having the patience sufficient to get through the heavily weighted ice hockey game descriptions game strategy, players, coaches, parents, rivalry, and ethics. Genre is clearly noted as being sports fiction and this is definitely outside of my normal reading choices. My first experience with a Backman novel and perhaps this might not have been the best choice. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world. Accusations are made, and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.īeartown 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. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.īeing 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. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semifinals, and they actually have a shot at winning. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. The number-one New York Times best-selling 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.

Beartownīest Literature & Fiction Book Blurb: 2018 Audie Award Finalist for Fiction We all came away with wildly different views of the series. Of course, The Winners at 684 pages would have been a daunting read for me, so I turned it over to the CE who burns through books like he does sweets. I had the opportunity to download the ebook of The Winners on NetGalley after I discovered Beartown, the audiobook at my local library on the advice of Lynne of Fictionophile who thought I’d appreciate the former better having read the first in the series.

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