Book Review: Us Agains You

Fredrik Bachman does it again with a follow up to Beartown. I’ve given up trying to wipe the tears away and now I just sitting here letting it flow.

I read Beartown last year, and with my memory I was fully expecting to forget all the characters and be completely lost most of the time. However, the author does such a brilliant job of embedding his characters into your soul that I hardly had to try and remember anyone. They all jumped back to life and I remembered that a piece of my heart was reserved for these inhabitants of a small town.

Just like his characters, Bachman doesn’t pull his punches. Nothing is simple, nothing is black and white. Not everyone gets a happy ending. There’s no obvious villain because there’s no villains in real life either. Just people doing what they believe they need to do. You can’t help but feel so strongly for these people, because if you’re honest with yourself, you recognize them. You recognize yourself in them.

I’ve been going through a bit of a reading slump, however I’m pretty sure this book pulled me out of it. I’ve remembered how a really well written book can make you feel things, how much I love being absorbed by a story so well told that you don’t notice the hours slipping by. Being so invested in seeing how it all ends that you stay up much later than you should, but you know the heavy eyelids the next day is worth it.

I might be high on emotions and suffering from lack of sleep right now, but I love this book and it’s author. Thank you Fredrik Bachman for reminding me how much I love reading.

Audiobook Review: A Man Called Ove

I honestly can’t say enough good things about this book. It has been literally years since a book has had me laughing out loud like this one has! Even when I was crying, I was still laughing. The only Fredrik Backman book I’ve read before was Beartown, and I thought going into this one would be a similar experience. Man was I wrong. And I’m so happy about that. Beartown was great, but I am completely enamored with Ove! Grumpy old ass that he is and all. The characters of this book is what really snares you, and the narrator did a great job of bringing them to life. Pravana was the main source for my lol’s and she’s also my idol. Although she’s a Saint and I fear that if I was in her shoes I’d have lost my shit at Ove and probably messed up the whole plot of the book. She’s brilliant 😀 The story can come across as very light-hearted, but at its core its really pretty deep and sad. Loneliness is a killer… and before judging someone by their surface demeanor, you should really try and look a little deeper… Although that doesn’t make it okay for people to be assholes… I’m looking at you Ove! P.S. I was pronouncing the name wrong the whole time. According to the narrator, it’s pronounced Oo-vuh… You learn something new every day!

Book Review: Beartown

Rating: 5 Stars
Date Started: 9 May 2017
Date Finished: 18 May 2017
Pages: 432
Genre: Contemporary

Sometimes I think it would be better to voluntarily stab myself in the heart rather than read a really good book. This is one of those times.

This is my first Frederik Backman, but I’ve heard people rave about his work so much that when this book came up on Netgalley I requested it without even looking at the description. I started reading and wasn’t sure that I would join the ranks of my fellow readers because they structure of the book was different than I usually enjoy, although the writing was good enough to carry me through the initial phase of getting used to it.

Pretty much the whole first half of the book focuses on Beartown and it’s passion — Hockey. I know much more about hockey than I ever wanted to, but vibe of the town was pretty familiar. Late nights at the local sports field, screaming my head off for our local boys to run just a little faster, celebrating success after a great game… I come from a rugby town. I know exactly the kind of expectations can be placed on a team. The adrenaline rush that can carry a whole community along on a wave of euphoria. I could identify with the characters in that way at least.

Backman definitely took his time building the temperature of the story and the characters. There are a lot of players and you get to know them all. Even the nameless ones; Kira’s colleague who is simply referred to as her colleague throughout, the pack of men in the black jackets who are loyal to the bears, the bass player who allows a boy to express tenderness. I loved many of the characters, and I didn’t even hate the ones who were ‘bad’… not really. That’s a whole other moral discussion though.

Once the “main event” happened, all I could think about was last year and the Brock Turner scandal. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the inspiration for Backman to write this novel. It certainly has the same kind of elements.

As a woman who’ve been in certain situations myself, it physically hurt my heart and my psyche to read this book. Not only does it deal with an issue that is so fragile that people come to blows about it, but because it was written well enough for me to immerse myself in the story. I felt like I was right there and experiencing everything, and I felt an overwhelming sense disappointment and heart-soreness at the actions of people. It was made even more poignant because it keeps reminding me of similar stories I’ve heard about and read about, and the fact that it’s not just fiction… people actually do think this way and act this way.

The conclusion of the book is kind of anti-climatic, but honestly I don’t think there’s ever going to be a perfect way to end a story like this. Because at the end of the day, life goes on, but there are no winners and you will never forget.