This novel contains description of sexual assault.
Beartown by Fredrik Backman follows high schoolers in a small Swedish town with little going for it besides their budding hockey team. The only way that the town can bring in financial opportunities is if their hockey team wins the national championship. However after Kevin, the star player of the team, assaults Maya, the daughter of the head coach of the youth hockey team, the town is ripped apart.
Beartown delves into the intricacies of class dynamics, sexism and homophobia all in the small town setting where everyone knows everybody else. It peers into the toxic masculinity and relationship dynamics of a male sports team where the pressure of success is placed onto young teenage boys. Backman critiques the system that creates young men with so much influence that they believe they can treat anyone else as disposable.
My favorite characters in Beartown are probably Amat and Benji both because of their bravery of doing what is right despite pressure to go with the flow. The only thing that I would change about the book is that because of the number of characters in Beartown, Maya's story and perspective feels like it lacked the depth that it deserved. It is the consequences of her story and trauma that shape the plot of the novel, but in my opinion Maya's character is one of the least fleshed out. I would recommend Beartown to most readers who are mature enough to digest the material in the book. Beartown is a quick read with fantastic characters that make you want to yell in anger or sob with pity. Beartown is a book with a lot buried under the surface.