Brilliant

This is a great story about humanity and how hard it is to survive, but survive we do. A story about a hockey town ( although it could have been any other male dominated sport). A story about parenting, friendships, prejudices, deceit, love, humour, cruelty - it’s has it all, yet told in such a simple fashion that it is truly wonderful.

2 people found this helpful

Inaudible

Loved the story. Listened on a very long car journey. The recording was not always audible. The narrator was so inconsistent that we missed whole chunks of the book. It was not possible to turn the volume up because in some parts it was then so loud as to be offensive, going to so quiet we couldn't hear. Very irritating and frustrating. It sounded as though the narrator kept moving his mouth away from the microphone.
We are not crazy to buy another title to see if it was just this narrator or a a general problem and so will probably cancel the subscription before we have to pay.

2 people found this helpful

Backman delivers another beautiful story

Riveting story, detailed and credible characterisation., and searing emotion.
John Sackville reads it with the exact pitch of a sympathetic observer, drawing you in to Beartown in all its strength and frailty.
I loved this book.

2 people found this helpful

Fiction or non-fiction?

Growing up in rural Sweden this really swept me back in both the best ways and the worst. Excellently written with great insight of the real areas described.

1 person found this helpful

Except for "bang, bang, bang, bang", it was great

A friend recommended the book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was uncanny to see the similarities between this book and the 1999 movie Mystery, Alaska. Both are set against a backdrop of a small rural town where ice hockey rules supreme.

The characters were very well-developed, and the book probably deserves 4.5 stars. A passage in the middle of the book was a bit slow, so I cannot rate it 5 stars. The book's ending, while executed satisfactorily, could have provided a bit more thrill. Another reason for rounding down instead of up was the repeated use of the word "bang". I realise the author wanted to emphasise the commitment of players practising, but it was repeated so often that I started comparing it to Neymar's rolling antics - it just kept going on and on. I did a quick word count, and the word was used 119 times, often in sequences of "Bang-bang-bang. Bang. Bang". This was repeated incessantly and, frankly, became extremely annoying. I also listened to the audiobook (Audible), which made it hard to gloss over. These were big enough issues for me to downgrade my rating.

Other than that, the author does a very good job of highlighting bias regarding matters close to people's hearts. It is probably nowhere near as evident regarding their favourite sports. The lengths individuals will go to to protect their stars are often as disturbing as the despicable acts these stars are accused of.

There are two more books in the series, and I will probably read them later.

Deeply human characters

Fredrik Backman creates true and complex characters with meaningful relationships. I have bookmarked so many phrases that touched me and where situations were so clearly and eloquently described. A beautifully written book packed full of drama, tension, humanity and emotions. The narrator captured the emotions so well and created true personalities with unforced accents. A job well done. Here and there the sound varied as if he stood closer to the microphone or moved away - which was probably a recording glitch, but not the fault of the narrator.

Gripping, full of drama, emotion and compassion

Fredrik Backman is an exceptional writer that always manages to heve me as a reader a real relationship with the complex and developing characters. For someone who never cared for hockey at all and grew up on the wrong side of small town group dynamics, it was a tough pill to swallow when I came to love characters that live and breathe such stuff in all its horror.

The glimpses into different characters experiencing the same or subsequent time periods became so short towards the end that it was hard to keep track and make my brain jump to the appropriate setting. This is probably much less of a challenge in print than in audiobook format , and might be correlated to my lack of sleep by the time I wrapped up the book, so I just resign myself to having to return to understand exactly what happened to especially Benji.

Gripping and sad. Worth a listen

Not an easy listen. This is a story that deals with real issues - culture, parenting, substance abuse, abuse, rape, and what we choose to see, understand and/or accept. Ultimately a gripping story.

Gripping story

A slightly slow start but a very well told and gripping story. The narrator taking on different English accents for a story not from there was a bit irritating but otherwise well told.