I'm not that much of a sports enthusiast, but author Fredrik Backman made me understand completely the passion that goes into a sport like hockey. Beartown is a small community and having a great hockey team is really the only thing it's known for. People "survive" in Beartown, but they take unbelievable hope from their teams.When the book begins, the Beartown junior hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals. This burden to win is heavy on the shoulders of these teenage boys, who believe that hockey is in their blood, sweat, and tears. Most people in the community think that if the team wins in the semi-finals, Beartown will change forever, but what really changes it is a violent crime that occurs on that same night.
No member of the town will be unaffected by the crime, and it is in this moment that the book's pace really picks up. Backman has a way of making the reader feel that they are flies on the wall IN Beartown, and it is his writing and unforgettable characters that make it such a heart-pounding read.
MY RATING - 4
