Fredrik Backman | BEARTOWN

Plot (via Goodreads):

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever-encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded town. And that rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior hockey team is about to compete in the national championships, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of the town now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. 
A victory would send star player Kevin onto a brilliant professional future in the NHL. It would mean everything to Amat, a scrawny fifteen-year-old treated like an outcast everywhere but on the ice. And it would justify the choice that Peter, the team's general manager, and his wife, Kira, made to return to his hometown and raise their children in this beautiful but isolated place. 
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semifinal match is the catalyst for a violent act that leaves a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Hers is a story no one wants to believe since the truth would mean the end of the dream. Accusations are made, and like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Review:

BEARTOWN is the type of novel that makes you delirious with emotion. This novel is not only one of the best novels I've ever read, but it's cinematic, heartbreaking, and engrossing.  The pacing with this novel is not only genius, but is so effective to the story that it's a masterpiece all in its own. Backman really takes his time letting the reader get used to and fall in love with this small hockey community and its large and lively residents. 

At about twenty pages into this novel, I was already obsessed and found myself anxious to know what was going to happen and who it would involve. I knew this was going to be something exceptionally fantastic when I found myself cackling at a the lines of a hungover character and then crying twenty pages after that with what could only be one of the most gut-wrenching stories of loss that I have ever read. There is a small mystery with this one that grabs you and doesn't let go with the first page. Mystified, I was desperate to know the outcome when I began this book...until about 150 pages in. Around that point, the story takes a catastrophic turn and I was perplexed as I watched this community I have fallen in love with unravel in a dark and dangerous way. I read and read, forgetting the mystery to this novel, but letting it envelop me. I've read plenty of novels before that I have said I have devoured, greedy with every word. This was the opposite. This novel engulfed me, the reader. I was at its mercy and the journey within this novel was easily one of the best reading experiences I've ever had.

As I approached the end, I was breathless and saddened that the journey was coming to an end. BEAR TOWN is like spilling your secrets with your best friend over wine. It's the comfort of family during the holidays. It's everything you want in a read. This is the novel you should read, you should discuss, you should recommend, and you should allow to change you. Terrifyingly real, brilliantly poignant, and capable of bring every emotion to life, you won't want to let this one slip out of your grasp.

*Special thank you to Atria Books for providing me with this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: Infinite.