Beartown

Weird picture, yes, but when your phone matches
your book, you have to show that off.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman, 418 pages

Beartown is a hockey town through and through. And for the first time in 20 years, the Beartown Bears junior team is heading to the national semi-finals, success riding on the shoulders of 17-year-old phenom Kevin Ehrdahl. If the juniors can win it all, the slowly dying Beartown may finally see some growth led by a new hockey academy. But while the team secures a place in the final, the post-game celebrations take a violent turn, removing Kevin from competition and pitting his word against that of the club manager's 15-year-old daughter, Maya. In a town where team loyalty is king, everyone from players to coaches to sponsors to fans are now trying to sort out their next move, and whether to believe the star athlete or the girl who had a crush on him.

This book was recommended to me because I love hockey, and while that's true, I don't think that's the selling point here. I can think of many books that celebrate hockey (and I'm happy to hand out recommendations), but this isn't one of them; it's merely the frame upon which sports fanaticism hangs in this book. What this book does is create an uncomfortably familiar and realistic situation and explore the many facets of it, from those of the victim and her family to the perpetrator and his family, from the cowed teammates to the fans who loudly protest that their star athlete would never do such a thing (if only because admitting so would also throw away their chances of winning). The residents of Beartown are nuanced and very real — I promise that you'll recognize someone among these characters — and Backman's handling of a delicate subject is excellently handled. An excellent novel.