Beartown by Fredrik Backman

From the publisher: The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.

In Beartown, the latest from Swedish publishing sensation Fredrik Backman, the residents of a small community, struggling economically, have one bright spot in their lives - the junior hockey team. This puts immense pressure on the teenaged members of that team and the adults around them.

Beartown is a slow-moving novel of great feeling that builds to big moments, then backs away and gets thoughtful. It's about sports, friendship, rape, societal expectations, right vs. wrong, female strength, and community. It features some fascinating, multi-faceted characters that felt like real people.  I loved it.

Beartown was not always easy to read, but I had trouble stepping away from it. The plot isn’t original: Something Happens before the big game that threatens the team’s success and pits the townspeople against one another. I guessed much of what was coming all along the way. The backgrounds of the characters aren’t particularly original – the bad boy whose father killed himself when he was a boy, the recent immigrant and his cleaning woman mother, the hometown hero returned in middle age to work for his old team. But Backman works those standard character descriptions into something More. The strength of the characters and the narrative make up for any deficiencies in plot. This is the kind of book where you get to know the characters so well you find yourself wondering about them long after you've finished the book.

I loved Backman’s first book, A Man Called Ove, but wasn’t too impressed with his third, Britt-Marie Was Here. While I enjoyed Ove more, Beartown is the better book. It really shows how much Backman has matured as a writer. Backman has a very specific writing style, slow, repetitive, and deliberate, and I’m sure it puts some people off. But I felt much of the writing in Beartown was masterful. Beartown reminds me in good ways of J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. Both are hard to read, and both showcase well developed characters that you come to care about and shine a spotlight on societal issues. (And Beartown is a lot shorter than The Casual Vacancy!)

I would give Beartown 4.5 stars instead of 5, mostly for the comfortable ending (although the ending satisfied me as a reader). I think this would make a great book discussion title. I recommend it for fans of Backman and of thoughtful fiction featuring developed characters.

Beartown comes out on April 25 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library in multiple formats.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston

I will be honest - I read this book because of the cover. I was intrigued by it from the first time I saw it. Realistic fictional YA novels, especially those narrated in the first person, are not high on my preferred reading list. But this is one of the best I've read lately.

I liked the book. It had a strong main character and good narrative flow. I think this could be a fine reading choice for any young woman feeling judged. There were many good secondary characters who helped Hermione through her trauma.  When Hermione tells her minister that she is scheduled for an abortion, for example, he says, “If someone starts throwing around stupid words like ‘It’s a gift,’ or ‘It’s in God’s plan,’ you come right here, and I’ll find you ten ways in which it isn’t.” (p. 129) 

The cover photo turned out to be a perfect choice for the book as well. It's an excellent representation of the story inside. The cheerleader on the cover is both at the top of her game and extremely vulnerable, partly in sunlight and partly in shadow.

The publisher description is misleading, I think. The thing I would emphasize most when describing this book is not the relationship between Hermione and Polly but how Hermione stays strong, grows into adulthood, and capably handles her traumatic experience.

A “reveal” about three fifths of the way in was hinted at from the first chapter and didn't come as a surprise, nor did I think it really added to the story. It's not enough to write an issue book these days, you must write an issues book. 

I originally thought it was too soon to have a teen heroine named Hermione, but that didn't end up bothering me at all. One thing I didn't feel was the connection to Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, aside from the character names. It’s cute that the team name is the Golden Bears, but some of the language trying to tie this book to the plot of The Winter’s Tale is quite belabored.

That aside, I recommend this to readers of realistic young adult fiction, especially readers looking for empowering messages for young women about rape and choice.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Genres: Realistic Fiction, Young Adult
Release Date: October 22nd, 1999

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Source: Checked out book from GPL

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Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.

When Speak came out over a decade ago, it was ground breaking because of the way it dealt with teen sexuality. 16 years later, it is still relevant and continues to change lives because it isn’t afraid to tell the story of a teenager who had real problems and real reactions to them.

Melinda doesn’t have a whole cast of friends to rely on. She doesn’t have parents to rely on. When she called the police at the party at the end of the summer, she lost her friends and she is stuck all by herself not knowing how to deal with what happened.

In that way, Melinda’s character is heartbreakingly realistic. But, Melinda also has a certain wit that makes her more than just a character to which a ‘bad thing’ happened. It makes Melinda a character worth knowing and someone you want to cheer for.

This book also deals with rape in a way that I think is realistic. It doesn’t dramatize it (this may be the wrong word to use but I don't know how to better express myself) but rather approaches it in a way that shows the reality of it. There are some things that were a little iffy but I am not going to go into detail because SPOILERS.

This book wasn’t perfect, though. I did think there were things that happened towards the end that were perhaps too easy but at the same time, worked. I also wished that we weren’t cut off from one scene towards the end of the book because it was the most important in my opinion.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I am so glad I finally read it after having it on my to-be-read list for ages.