Beartown

Fredrik Backman has written one hell of a novel, Beartown, recommended to me by my wife and daughter. It’s a coming of age/crime/sports novel that takes place in a “hockey town.” It begins as a sports story of high school boys who live in a small foreign town, perhaps Sweden. For generations, remote Beartown has lived and died with the success of their teams at the Beartown Ice Hockey Club – but not much good has happened in recent years until Kevin Erdahl came along. Now he promises to bring so much to his home town because of his incredible hockey prowess. Kevin and all of his teammates are coming of age, teen boys and girls, including the general manager’s daughter, Maya Andersson. The crime is a rape, committed by Kevin, and it tears the town apart. The author is extremely skilled at character development and presenting a complex topic. This is one of my top books of the year, and I’m about to dive into the sequel.