Book Trilogy Recommendation: Beartown Series by Fredrik Backman

Posted On April 2, 2023

Hi Readers! I am back after quite a hiatus! But don’t worry because it was just a writing hiatus and not a reading one. March was definitely the longest month ever, which usually I enjoy because it’s my birthday month. But everyone’s got a limit!

I read five books in March, for which I’ll write a roundup post very soon. From those five books, I am going to write book reviews for three, including this one! This review has been a work in progress since January. Now that I’ve finally read the third book in the Beartown series, here’s the long review put together!

~~BEARTOWN~~

A tiny isolated town with a sport as their saving chance wasn’t something I would have picked to read if it weren’t for Fredrick Backman. From the first page, I was gripped with the story and the characters. There are way too many characters and the story is told in the period of one week. So, it can be daunting just as much as the town of Beartown, if not more so. But, this time around, I had planned on sticking with it and I was so glad.

What I loved the most about the book is how I was indifferent towards hockey when I started and how much I cared about it by the end of it. Perhaps not hockey in general, but more in the sense of being a part of Beartown and understanding what hockey meant to it. How one sport can make or destroy a town is, of course, too many words. But, then there are people who play the sport and people who revolve around the sport that make a difference.

There are so many shocking instances throughout the novel that you just can’t keep it down. It will make you question your morals. Because, of course stealing is bad. But, what if the person stealing is doing it to save his child? Of course, I wanted Kevin to be behind bars as soon as Maya told her parents that he raped her. But, there was again a very tiny part of me who thought maybe he could be put behind bars after the game. That’s what this book will do to you.

It will make you question things that you saw as black and white. It will make you think twice about morally questionable decisions. It will make you care about something that meant next to nothing to you otherwise. You will feel useless and sorrow and would want to wipe away Maya’s tears. You will feel blind rage and would want to kill Kevin. You will feel empathy and would want to give a shoulder to Benji. You will feel hope and courage and would want to talk to Amat. With a story covered over a week with so many beloved characters written so wonderfully, you will feel so many emotions for each and every one of them.

I rated Beartown by Fredrick Backman at 4/5 stars. The only reason it wasn’t a 5 star read is because there were repeated dialogues that were misogynistic and homophobic. That perhaps comes along the whole locker-room environment, but I could’ve been happier without it.

~~US AGAINST YOU~~

I dived into this one right after I finished Beartown. Even though the story felt finished in the first book, I was deeply invested in every character and most importantly for the future of Beartown Ice Hockey. But, I was really disappointed with this one. Sometimes, first books are inferior to their sequels. And, I think that’s how it should be. The level of interest and love for a book in a series should be incremental and that’s why Book 3 should be better than Book 2 and Book 2 should be better than Book 1.

In Us Against You, I thought I will get to see a lot of hockey because of the title of the novel. But, the only ‘us against you’ drama in this book is about Beartown against Hed in terms of community, politics, fights, violence and more of such dumb things. The first 100 pages of the novel are merely recapping the first book. There was barely any story progression. The only interesting part of the book is the last 100 pages where things actually happen.

Reading is a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, it is a way to escape from reality, which is why I prefer fiction. So, I really have no interest in reading about how a sport is not just a sport, but also politics and everything else. No matter how many times it is stated in the book that hockey ‘should’ be just hockey, it just goes on to prove in multiple ways how it is not just hockey. Because of this, I did not have an enjoyable reading experience with this book. I have rated Us Against You by Fredrick Backman at 3/5 stars! I suppose 2 stars would be more suitable, but I am hoping the nothingness in this book has some foundation for the last book in the series.

~~THE WINNERS~~

After reading Beartown and Us Against You in January, I wanted to read The Winners right away. But I just couldn’t. It was perhaps because of the overused lyrical writing style or that the book was almost 700 pages or because I knew it will again have recaps from the first two books. So I paused and read it in March.

This being the last book of the series, I was fully prepared to love it. But I have to admit that it was a struggle. Just like the second book, in this one as well there was a lot of repitition. There were short previews from the earlier books for all the characters, of which there are way too many. So, even though the book started with the setting of a storm, it was still super slow. It got interesting to me after the 50% mark!

What struck me most in this book was my feelings toward Beartown and Hed and how vital perspective can be. I had hated Hed in the first two books. But in this one, we actually get to narrow down Hed into just a town of normal people. Stories are told from the perspective of Hed folks, from Hannah, Johnny, Tess, Tobias, Ted, Ture, the editor in chief and her dad and Matteo. When you look at the intertwined lives from both the sides, you change! Now it’s not just Benji or Maya or Ana or Amat who have your heart. But also all these new characters who you are able to bond with so easily.

So, yes, characters are one of the strongest piece of the series. Even though the plot is not inventive and might just be mediocre, it’s the characters you come back to and root for and cry with.

If we are to get into the plot, I thought it was okay enough to tie everything up. At its worst, it was unimaginative, needlessly complicated and went adrift at times. But, at its best, it has the power to evoke emotions from a large audience given how raw the nature of the story is. Something like this or an iota of it happens to everyone and every town. So, be it the community sticking together or corruption leading to self serving gains or politics leading to a bitter sweet end game, it’s all very real when it is a part of a three-book series!

Lastly, I liked how it all came to a full circle, especially because it was not in the way I had imagined. We started off with hockey, but soon it turned into a story of rape leading to power, politics and corruption. But out of it came Maya who was able to move on from it in the best way she could. And then there was Ruth who never moved on. Given the difference of influence, money and power, one girl was able to escape but the other couldn’t. The entire series is muddled with this message but when it was put in this way, it shone light on everything that happens in the real world.

I definitely would’ve preferred less of the politics, more of hockey and more plot with these characters to know and stay with them longer. But I am still very happy that I read the series. I have rated The Winners by Fredrik Backman at 4.5/5 stars and the series at 4/5 stars as a whole.

So, that is all, folks! I have read Backman’s other novels, like A Man Called Ove, Anxious People and And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer. The writing and style and meaning beyond in those books is far higher than in the Beartown series. I feel that Backman writes his best novels when they are stand alone with a very vivid big picture in mind. But, that’s just me. I suppose I’ll always have mixed feelings for Beartown but it’s still a very interesting book series. Happy reading!

Until next time,