fiction
As promised by the title, this novel is about Beartown, an
extremely small town on the edge of the forest in Sweden, and the people who
reside there. The town’s only claim to
fame is that they’ve had a few instances of hockey brilliance in the distant past. They are currently hoping for a huge hockey win from their junior team which could boost the economy of the troubled town. And then, on a night of
high hopes, a tragedy occurs which will rock the town and force citizens to
take sides.
The first half of the novel was mostly an introduction to
all of the townspeople at a perfect pace for getting to know them fairly well.
Unlike some novels where this sort of introduction can feel tedious or
cumbersome, Fredrick Backman successfully navigated this character study and made me
want to keep reading.
Then, at the halfway point, a crime occurred and I was
hooked. Really, before that point, the author had dropped a few obvious hints
within the story stating that certain characters would later wish they’d done
something differently or that certain moments would be imprinted in people’s
heads. So I knew some significant incident was coming. It was an infuriating
rape situation (warning for those with triggers) which, unfortunately, played out in exactly the way it often does in
real life. The novel treated all of this really well.
When I borrowed the audiobook, I saw on the cover that it
mentioned HBO. I discovered that HBO had created a TV series from the novel and
I do believe this could make a great TV series because of all the characters
and the interesting townscape. However,
it would be even more upsetting to watch this acted out than it was to read it
so I won’t be seeking the series out.
The audiobook narrator was Marin Ireland and she was a
terrific audiobook narrator with a large voice repertoire and wonderful voice
acting. I’ll give her an A.
fiction
Picking up soon after Beartown ended, Us Against You continues
to describe the lives of the townspeople we’ve come to know as well as introduces a few
new folks. Sadly, the town is really struggling following the events in the first novel. Yet, there is kindness, repentance, character growth, and hope by the end
of the novel. Backman really understands human nature and is excellent at explaining
and describing actions and behaviors. He breaks the reader’s heart but manages
to warm it a bit before the novel ends. This was a really good sequel. I will
definitely read the next novel in the series when it is released (supposedly next
month). I’m actually interested in watching the HBO series now.
The audiobook was, once again, read by Marin Ireland and she
did a great job again. However, she noticeably pronounced two proper names differently
in this novel than the last one. I can only assume that she was corrected after
the audiobook for the first novel was produced. That’s shoddy production and resulted in inconsistency between the novels. I’ll give Ireland a break and not dock her any points even though it
seems that these questions about pronunciations when dealing with names from
another country should have been squared away from the get go. I’ll give her
another A.
fiction
Rejoining the community of Beartown, Fredrik Backman first
reminded the reader about the characters who had been introduced earlier in the
series while introducing some new ones. This was a good thing for me. However, at
over 1/3 of the way through the novel, the story was not going anywhere.
Normally, Backman novels suck me in almost immediately. This one did
not. It did finally develop storylines that were somewhat interesting but this
novel is, by far, my least favorite of Backman’s novels. It was too much of the author’s pontifications
and not enough of an engaging storyline. The characters were mostly depressed,
stuck, and/or dissatisfied. There was a
lot of internal politics. (Blech!) There wasn’t as much witticism as he usually
throws in. On top of that, the novel was repetitive and too long. Did Backman
lose his editors? This one just felt so completely different than all his other
novels and not in a good way. Normally, he expresses his keen insight into
human nature with more subtlety but he literally held court with his musings in
this novel. It grew old and long.
It didn’t really make me want to keep reading until after
the halfway mark. And then, toward the end there was a very difficult chapter
to read. I persevered because I felt I owed it to Backman and myself to finish
it. The ending of the novel was good! But at least part of me was just glad
that it finally ended.
The narrator was, once again, Marin Ireland. She’s always terrific with great voice acting
and a nice vocal repertoire. She gets an
A here.
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