As I am writing this, it has been 6 minutes since I finished the audiobook of Beartown by Fredrik Backman, also known as The Winners. It’s a great story about a hockey town, and that’s all that I’ll say about what it’s about since I don’t like reading too much about what books are about so I won’t write about it either. Instead, I will tell you about a few things that I loved about the book.
But first, what I didn’t like. At first, that is.
I have a small brain and I get lost when there are a lot of characters, so I tend to put down books that have too many stories. However, Fredrik Backman does a great job at creating these characters and it makes you remember them because they become real people. Yes, at times I still forgot, but after a few seconds, the context helped me.
What did I love? The poetry. This book was not written in English, but this translation has some great dialogue that I hope was as great in its original language. Some descriptions made me say “wow.” Descriptions of love, grief, anger, joy, and loss that I rarely feel from a book. My small brain doesn’t remember them all, but in the moment, I wanted to hold on to the words.
I know nothing about hockey or many other sports for that matter, but the author makes it sound like it’s the only sport in the world that matters. It does to Beartown.
As I said, this isn’t much of a book review, but I highly recommend this book. In audio, it was simply amazing.
