Beartown by Fredrik Backman - ADULT

Backman, Fredrik  Beartown, 415 pgs.  Atria Books, 2016 (Simon and Schuster).  $26.99  Content: Language: R (100+ swears; 50+ “F”); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: R.  

Beartown is a hockey loving town where not much else is happening.  The town keeps getting smaller and their biggest hope is that the Beartown Hockey team will win the championship and a hockey academy will be built there to help the town grow.  When an incident upsets the star player’s ability to play in the championship game, accusations tear up the town and cause many to reflect on what their town is really about-hockey or community.  

I hate/loved this book.  It has a really slow beginning as all the many characters and their backstories are set up.  As the story builds up to the incident I kept feeling impatient for something to happen.  Then it’s like boom-and I couldn’t put it down.  I like the characters and I liked the story even though it’s not an easy topic.  It is well written, but there is so much content that it’s definitely an adult book-rape, suicide, drug use, crass insensitive jokes.  Just because some of the characters are high school age, doesn’t make this a young adult novel.  

ADULT – OPTIONAL.    Reviewer, C. Peterson.