Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Beartown

This is a character-heavy book, it took me a little while to get all the characters straight in my head but once I did they were so vivid and real. The pacing of the book was great, there were quick changes between all the characters' lives and it was all told in third person.
You felt like you were there in Beartown with them. There were heavy topics in the story and became frustrating in ways not because it was unrealistic, but because it was very realistic and reflective of what happens in a lot of similar cases in real life.
This is one of the most well-written books I've read in a long time, I believe I'll be thinking about this story for a long time to come.

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liinaps's review against another edition

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You don't need to say words to the effect of "but nothing would ever be the same after the terrible event that is about to happen" at the end of every paragraph to build suspense.

I also would never have picked up the book if I had known the entire plot centres around a girl being raped. I'm tired of men writing about assaulting women.

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camkayy's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Absolutely heartbreaking. This made me feel every sort of emotion possible and getting so many different point of views from all the different people involved was SO good. I do think the author did the book a disservice by introducing so many characters right off the bat, it made it hard to keep track of who was who in the beginning so a lot of the background details got forgotten about. Still, amazing.

2% - "If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway. All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway."

54% - "Will this love for her daughter ever stop being unbearable?"

83% - "The love a parent feels for a child is strange. There is a starting point to our love for everyone else, but not this person. This one we have always loved, we loved them before they even existed. No matter how well-prepared they are, all moms and dads experience a moment of total shock, when the tidal wave of feelings first washes through them, knocking them off their feet. It’s incomprehensible because there’s nothing to compare it to. It’s like trying to describe sand between your toes or snowflakes on your tongue to someone who’s lived their whole life in a dark room. It sends the soul flying."

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zane_black8's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Thought I was getting a book about a hockey town in Sweden revived by the success of their youth team. What I got instead was so, so much more. The amount of characters with fantastic depth doesn’t seem like it should be possible in just one book, but Backman does it masterfully while telling a truly heartfelt story. A really good one, no doubt at all

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kjordan96's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really enjoyed this book. Some of the themes were dark; however, the author handles the points of view very well. The reactions of the characters were layered and realistic. Each of the point of views felt necessary to build the view of the town as a whole. The themes of family, friendship, sport fanatics, what it means to be a team were all captured well. There were times I thought a scene was going one way but it went another, which I appreciated - made the story not feel predictable and flat

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