While the story is dark at times, love, sacrifice, and the bonds of friendship and family shine through ultimately offering hope and even redemption.” “Lest readers think hockey is the star here, it’s Backman’s rich characters that steal the show, and his deft handling of tragedy and its effects on an insular town. A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman's latest will resonate a long time.” “Like Friday Night Lights, this is about more than youth sports it's part coming-of-age novel, part study of moral failure, and finally a chronicle of groupthink in which an unlikely hero steps forward to save more than one person from self-destruction.

“The sentimentally savvy Backman takes a sobering and solemn look at the ways alienation and acceptance, ethics and emotions nearly destroy a small town and young people.” 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 semi-final 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 semi-finals, 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. A dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream-and the price required to make it come true.

Beartown backman