Ova

Bears from the Beartown

Beartown by Fredrik Backman (also published as Scandal)

What a book!

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I can’t believe this book is written by a man. Yes. I know, Prejudice. Whatever. Sorry to sound like an arsehole. But the strength of emotions and the amount of painfully accurate truth  in this book is dazzling. I cannot express my admiration on how Backman captured the psychology of an 15 year old girl. Two actually. Ace.

I won’t lie, I wasn’t going to pick up this book to read if it wasn’t given to me and this is mostly because the intermittent mention of HOCKEY and SPORTS in the book blurb. Hockey is almost no interest to me, and I really didn’t want to read a book that rolls around a sports-crowd etc. But hell, no. It wasn’t about that at all.

Yes, Hockey is in this book. It very much is. The amount of sexism that revolves around   “sports people” is infuriating. What it takes to be “good” at a certain type of sport also is mind-blowing.

Beartown is dying. People are selling their homes to move. No jobs, no future, almost no hope. Almost. There is a junior hockey team in town that could be THE BEST in the country. Then they can have a new ice rink. Some money. Investments. Even a shopping mall. Jobs. Hope. A future or Beartown is pretty much depending on this Junior team.

So people WORSHIP the ice-hockey bears in Beartown. They are the hope. And we witness what happens. And it’s more than you can imagine.

This is a sad novel, but it does have a light tone majorly. It didn’t make me cry, but it did make me think a lot. We live in a man’s world and every day sexism is only “normal” and something to be lived with, sadly.

I can’t say more and reveal the books plot too much, but please comment if you have read it! Would love to hear what you have made of it.

5 stars from me.

5star

 

 

 

13 comments

  1. This was one of my favourite reads this year!
    I mainly chose it cuz i needed a book involving sport for my reading challenge, but also it promised a “shocking event” and small town politics at its finest.
    I have no regrets. One of those books i’m still talking about, and i read it in January. Loved all the characters and the writing style just blew me away.

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  2. Great review, I stumbled upon this book couple of times being turned off with the blurb. But, it’s good to hear you loved it, so I will put this on my very big TBR pile 🙂 Thanks for the great review!

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  3. What a brilliant review, my curiosity is definitely piqued. I will be checking this book out as well. Thanks for the recommendation. 🙂

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  4. I saw a rave review on another blog, but I’d kind of written it off due to the sports blurb; I mean, I can’t stand sports lol. 😛 However, I’m now intrigued to check this one out! Could you enlighten me as to what genre this book predominantly is in? Does it feel more like YA, contemporary, or just general fiction…?

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    • Thanks Stephanie! Definitely worth reading. Give it a try. Sports is a background in the book to open up more on sexism I think. Please let me know what you think after you read it. Your blog is on Blogger so I can’t see it on reader, let me know if you review it !! Would love to read your review.

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