Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Beartown by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to Marin Ireland's stellar narration of Beartown which was a compelling tough read/listen. It was about hockey, small town nastiness, bullying, bullying, bullying. Backman chose to tell his story about a great team of boys, their families, the hockey mentality (which was not pretty to listen to over and over again) of the boys, the townspeople, the board, the sponsors and the families. Within all of this, Backman begins on the first page with a bang,bang, bang that continues to be hammered incessantly through the book (a little too much for me) and doesn't really get to the "crime" til so much later in the book. With the way Backman chose to tell the story, it was not so much based on interactions of the characters but thoughts of what could have been said, what was and was not done, therefore I did not really feel totally invested in the characters in the story but in their circumstances and how that played out in their town, Beartown and how it related to ice hockey. That being said, there were some characters I really enjoyed- they were deep, committed, passionate- Peter, his wife, Kira, his daughter Maya and her best friend as well as Benjie, his mom, Ramona, Ahmed. I tried to like the coach of the boys but he was a tough character especially when compared to the older coach, Soon, who was such an upstanding human being. Backman's portrayal of Benjie and his fierce personality and struggle with being a hockey player and gay broke my heart. On the other hand, Ahmed, was always bullied, was "of color" in a white town, his mother a worker at the rink- but when the time came- he stepped up and revealed the truth even at great cost to himself. A tough read and the bullying aspect was so ingrained in Beartown it was hard to take over and over again from my reader point of view.

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