Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - Beartown

Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

strawberrygal's review

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

The most amazing book I’ve ever read. Time and time again Fredrik Backman amazes me with his unique way of writing characters in a way that feels so deeply personal to the reader. He has really outdone himself with Beartown. My emotions swung from crying to laughter with every page and the storytelling kept an incredible grip on me. Not to mention the attention to details that make the story feel so much richer. The ending really ties everything together in a totally unexpected way. The plot twists were incredibly well written and threw me for a loop even when I thought I had everything figured out. This book is about so much more than hockey, it’s about love, courage, the faults and shortcoming of people, and so much more.
Truly a book that keeps you on your toes in the best way.

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nndang's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

The plot/ premise sounded like the most boring, unintriguing thing in the world. SO HOW DID I GET SO EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED IN THIS BOOK AND THIS FICTIONAL SMALL TOWN?? I logically wanted to hate all the characters in this book and theyve all done things that would make it easy for anyone to hate them (or at the very least be annoyed with them) but the way Backman writes and develops all of his characters with such complexity and care is heartwrenching. Looooovvveeee this book.

So many trigger warnings tho*

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kirstensbabel's review against another edition

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5.0

This is one of the best books I have ever read that is just about people. It flits through so many different povs from people in Beartown, yet somehow makes them each a complete and whole character, by showing them through the angles of themselves and everyone they know. It is really masterful.
This book is also insanely sad. It is heart-wrenchingly devastating in a way that makes you feel this old, deep misery in your stomach. I felt genuine pain reading this and also thinking about it. I had to put it down sometimes not just because it's heavy (I've read much heavier books), but because every character is going through so much pain. Every person in the community whether you like them or not, is going through their own story and their own pain.
It's a book about hockey.
But it is not about hockey.
I don't play hockey. I have never seen a hockey game. But it doesn't matter, because the characters love hockey. It is what brings them together and that is what you can connect to.
This book is filled with so much love and sadness and hope and grief and pain, generally just so much emotion that it's hard to read sometimes from all the feeling Backman makes you do.
My favorite characters are Benji (boy with the sad eyes and the wild heart), Kira (the mother wolf), Peter, Maya, Ana, Romona and Amat. I don't know if David is the best character or the worst one.
The biggest tragedy is that in the first act Backman builds up all the pride and hope the town has for Kevin, that you start to feel that he's your hero too. So when the

rape

is committed, thats when you feel all of it fall away as if you are another person in Beartown. And then the rage comes, the rage at the fact that such an act can be committed and people will still say that the boy is innocent because they would rather

label a girl as a slut

than look in the mirror and see what their community as done to themselves.
Last of all the writing is insanely gorgeous, simple at times but with lines that take your breath away.
I did cry.

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mbrogs2024's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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oatmilktea's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense 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? It's complicated

2.5

I don’t know why, but I expected this book to be lighthearted and cosy, going in. Probably because of the German title, which roughly translates to “Small Town, Big Dreams”. A bit misleading imo, but on me for not looking it up prior to reading. Also, I don't think I would have picked it up if I had known that most of the book is about SA and how the town handles it (not well. At all.), but that's also on me.

All right, let's do this. I did not really enjoy this book but I can recognise it for what it is and/or tries to achieve. The way I see it, it’s mostly a character study as well as an analysis of society, in the broadest sense. There are almost as many themes as pov characters, so, a lot: (club) hierarchies, peer pressure, esprit de corps, hush-up/rape culture, abuse of power, classism, sexism, homophobia, lynch law, child abuse… I could go on. Some themes take the spotlight, others are only touched upon, but overall there's value here.

Despite not being a fan of an omniscient narrator with an unlimited pov, especially one who keeps jumping back and forth in time and place, I thought the author handled it rather well. I may not have liked the narration style, but there were only a few characters, like Benji’s sisters, that I failed to tell apart from one another. Most characters were discrete, and I don’t think that’s easy to do.

However, I have gripes. This book is way too long. It could have easily done with a hundred pages less. It moves very slow and I get it, it’s all about the characterisation, but then the book is so repetitive in places that it added unnecessarily to the word count. Especially with the constant foreboding, ice hockey analogies, and telling-not-showing statements about friendships or how things work in this town. Because, you know, it’s Björnstad, after all, and ice hockey is ice hockey, so... cherry blossoms?

I found Bear Town intriguing enough, but for the most part I wanted to finish it for the sake of moving on to another book.

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xenikoo's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

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sofxaim's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This story was a little bit infuriating to listen to, and I've walked away from it hating 98% of the men in it. There are characters that I love so much and I enjoyed seeing them develop.

I wasn't a huge fan of the style/tone, but it was still a good story.

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