This book was very different to other Fredrik Bakman books I have read. and like those, I enjoyed it very much, it had suspense and was fascinating. It starts with a dramatic opening that will keep you engrossed until the end of the book. A teenager picks up a double barrelled shotgun, goes to the forest and points it at someone's head. The story is set in Beartown, Sweden and is about an ice hockey community. Getting to understand any fanatical sport's people is not easy for me but this book is believable and I learnt a lot about the sport in a way I never expected. The characters of the book are a real mixture and you can see the diversity of the town. The plot is gripping without unnecessary 'drama'. In some ways it is sad to think life can be like this. Cant wait for the next book by Fredrik Backman.

This is a book about a town, a hockey town, where ice hockey brings the community together and builds relationships and camaraderie, making heroes of the players and anyone close to them. Hockey also puts an immense strain and pressure on the people close to the team, because this town is isolated in a bleak, frozen forest of Sweden and Hockey is the key to putting it on the map.
The book begins in the build up to a semi-final game for the Junior team in Bear Town. We get to read the point of view of Peter, the general manager of the club, his wife and daughter and how Peter's commitment to the team affects them. We are given insight into the lives of the team coach, main players, former players and potential players. Hockey means something different to all of them but all share a desperation to succeed no matter what.
When the scandal happens, it doesn't just affect the families involved but the whole town, the team, the sponsors, the future.
I really enjoyed this novel, despite knowing nothing about ice hockey. You can't escape the sport, but you won't want to either. It's the psyche of the people involved that makes this so absorbing. This is a tale of human emotion and I am thrilled to have been offered the title by netgalley for review.

BRILLIANT! STORYTELLING AT ITS BEST:
Having written "A Man Called Ove", a bestseller which I have to admit I own but haven't found the time to read, Fredrick Backman is an accomplished author.
"The Scandal" is an exceptional tale set in Beartown: a town which lives and breathes Ice Hockey. Otherwise it has little going for it. It is a town in decline: population, employment and opportunity.
The Scandal is about one month in the town's history when the Junior Hockey Team reach the semi-final of a national competition. Success could bring regeneration. Failure condemn the town to oblivion.
The hockey team depends on one star player, Kevin, to create and score goals. Kevin in turn relies on his best friend, Benji, to protect him whilst he produces that streak of genius to score a goal.
The tale focuses on the mind-set of a team on the brink of success as it wrestles with a serious allegation against its main star, Kevin. Whilst the story features a Hockey team in reality it could be any sporting team. The allegation against Kevin may have implications for the Junior Team's chances of success in the national competition.
Beartown is a town where everyone's measure is taken by the contribution they make to the town's Ice Hockey Club.
This is a tale of tragedy, ambition, camaraderie, deceit, betrayal, class, devotion and revenge. The novel, like the sport, takes few prisoners and is not short of violence on and off the rink.
The story is narrated in a unique style: sometimes seeming repetitive at times but this is deliberate. The author is reinforcing facts in the readers mind.
The novel primarily deals with the crime of rape and its repercussions. This is "The Scandal" of the title. A rape which takes place in a small, closed community sees a town divided in opinion as to who is telling the truth. Indeed some inhabitants have a loose definition as to what the word itself means.
Backman poses the moral question: what happens to the truth when it may be detrimental to a town or community itself. For Beartown read "AnyTown". Anywhere.
This novel is unlike any other I've read in 2017, simply a class act. It deserves to be widely read as it has a strong moral core. So different, so brilliant.
This is the first novel I've read by Fredrick Backman, but I can't wait to get started on "A Man Called Ove".

A small town in northern Sweden. There is not much that connects the people in Beartown, it is too small and too insignificant to be known beyond the town’s limits. Yet, when the junior hockey boys win the semi-finals, for the first time in history, something big can happen. Beartown has always been a hockey town, if you don’t play, you are nobody. If you are not connected somehow with the local club, you are an outsider. Peter is the manager of the club and of course his wife Kira and their kids Maya and Leo also have to live for the club. Coach David has raised a generation of winners and with this junior team, they can finally pick the fruits of many years of hard work. But one evening will change everything, old friendships and loyalties will be tested, values will be questioned. The town will never be the same when the scandal comes to light.

I have read novels by Fredrik Backman before and really like his style and his eye for the detail in creating singular characters. However, “The Scandal” is so much more than interesting characters at a crucial moment of their life, it is the portrait of a community, the study of an average small town and the way these places work and how the individual is just a small cog in the machine. Admittedly, I also wouldn’t ever have imagined that a novel about ice hockey could be interesting, but it is.

First of all, the structure of the novel is full of suspense. You get to know the small town, all the important people, logically connected to the club, yet, the narrator warns you quite early that something is about to change everything, that things are not going to stay the way they are.

We have the kids, the boys playing hockey, friendships based on doing sports together, on being in a team, on standing in for one another. We have the girls who only play a minor role in the public opinion since they do not play hockey, there is no girls team, they are just a reward for the successful player, an accessory to decorate oneself with. We have the functional and the dysfunctional families, the rich and the poor, the local heroes and prestigious and the outsiders whom everybody ignores. Beartown is just like any small town anywhere in the world.

When the scandal finally becomes known, people have to take sides and have to admit to their values: is winning with the club more important than the individual’s fate? Whose side do you take, whom do you believe? What are you willing to give up and risk for a hockey team? Many are ready to forget long-time friendships, to forget their ideals, to place success before justice. It is impressive how Backman traces the development of the mood in town, how the machine finally starts and how opinions are formed.

Actually, it is not a novel about hockey. It is a novel about you and me and the question what is important in life and what you are willing to do to defend your principles or to be successful.

Small Towns Do It For Me
I’ve already talked about how I love stories about small towns. They fascinate me. The atmosphere of small towns is something I adore and I find it fascinating how everyone always knows everyone else and all the residents are in some way connected. I think small town stories offer so much room for exploration of different kinds of relationships and interactions.

This was the case with Beartown. There’s an incredible cast of characters here and they are all very interconnected. It’s a story that offers you a ton of different people and manages to make them all very nuanced and fleshed out. I appreciated all of the characters in here, since they were all so very well done.

Not Everything is Black and White
Backman’s characters are really flawed. None of them are perfect. Some are bad people, some are good, but ultimately, they are all human, and they are all very flawed. A lot of mistakes made here, a lot of irritating decisions, but it was all so well done. I think that it’s a true testament of writing skill when a writer manages to create subtle and nuanced characters who feel so very real.

I loved Kira a lot
Kira is the mother of a girl who goes through this horrible experience and she was possibly my favorite character, although I liked all of them. The reason I want to talk about her is because I think she is a spectacular female character. I have talked previously how I struggle with female characters written by men. Turns out I was just reading the wrong male writers. Kira is an incredibly well done character, and Backman managed to capture her so well. She struggles with her need for a career and the fact that she wants to spend time with her kids. She is a really capable and successful woman. She makes sacrifices for her family. She is fierce. I just loved her and I am so pleasantly surprised by that fact.

And the rest of the characters are spectacular as well. I really loved Benjamin, he was such a wonderfully written character, and probably my second favorite.

Sports Everywhere
I loved how hockey was handled in this. I loved all the talk about it, the sense of comradery and community. The team spirit and the coach-players dynamic was so well done. I am not a huge sports fan, but I loved every bit of that aspect of the book. Hell, I might even start watching hockey. It’s so persuasive and detailed and just, again, so well done.

Finally, The Big Issue
As I’ve said previously, this book deals heavily with rape. It’s the catalyst for the whole story and the whole disintegration of the town. And it was handled so well.
The author discusses rape culture and victim blaming and does such a good job at talking about these issues.

And he manages so well to capture it all. The privilege, the slut shaming, the way we respond to this, by looking away, by ignoring, by turning it towards the victim (who must have done something wrong), the apologetic attitude we assume when the perpetrator is someone we know and admire. There’s so much stuff that’s talked about in here. Virtually every topic around rape is explored here and done justice and just handled masterfully.

But the main thing that Backman manages to do is express feelings so well. From guilt that everyone feels somehow (the parents, the best friend, the teammates), over anger that also everyone feels (the girl, the parents, the best friend) and to hopelessness that all of them end up with, it’s all just portrayed so honestly and laid bare. I LOVED IT.

Overall, I am in love with this book and everything it managed to do. Go read it, buy it for your friends, give it as a gift. It should be read widely.

Is a book more rewarding if you spent the first section wondering whether or not to put it aside for something that doesn’t revolve around a sport that you have no interest in, only to find yourself completely drawn into the both the story and writing style? Whatever the answer, this is definitely one of my favourite reads of the year despite the uncertain start.

At the beginning of the book we hear shots but soon the action switches to a game of ice hockey. Now I wasn’t a fan of the straightforward hockey on proper ground being much smaller than my peers, no good at running and it was freezing cold, doing the same on ice only has peril written all over it as far as I’m concerned. But through the game we get to meet all the inhabitants of Beartown a small town in Sweden whose whole identity seems to be wrapped up in the game. Man, woman or child, if you live in Beartown then the fortune of your dwelling place depends on the success of the various teams ordered by age, if a little muddied by aptitude.

Those shots I mentioned kept me wondering as the action switched from the ice to the town and back again as young boys were ready to make their mark against the opponents whilst others failed in their efforts. Beartown Ice Hockey team are about to play in the semi-finals, and they want to win.

This book is full of diverse characters albeit a set that are united by their love of the game, or what it can mean for Beartown, a town that has been a long time in the decline. We see the board members sponsors, the coach, the General Manager, the fathers, mothers and sisters of the players as well as the team themselves. We even know a great deal about the woman who cleans the ice rink, the changing rooms and the offices for the club. Everyone is involved in some way or another. But the focus of the book isn’t about the game, or not directly, it’s about something that happened after a game and the consequences on all involved.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, I really wasn’t sure that this was a book for me and yet the writing was at pared down yet eloquent, holding so many truths of life that I wished I had read it when I was younger and still had some of the important thoughts that were shared.

Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanise our enemy…

The writing style alone had me convinced, with phrases and messages carried through from one scene to another – when the book got tough, and it does, the stylistic flair kept the momentum going forward while the reader comes to terms with what has been revealed. There are issues galore and normally when I write that in a review I’m not being complimentary because it can feel as if the author is leaping from bandwagon to bandwagon. That isn't the case with The Scandal where the issues in the book are tightly linked to the players on a personal level. The author hasn't offered up platitudes or worst case scenarios, instead the author has a nuanced take and provides what I felt was a balanced path, best of all leaving the reader to come to his or her own opinions.

This is a story of friendship between males and females, yes despite the kernel of the action being a boys ice hockey team, there are some females who are also central to the story. It is also the story of those other major relationships of being a parent, a sibling, or a partner, of being loved and loving others. Most of all this is a tale of how loyalties can be divided and sometimes sitting on the fence isn’t an option. It is in fact a remarkable book that had me in tears more than once.

I'd like to say a huge thank you to the publishers Penguin UK who allowed me to read a copy of The Scandal or Beartown if you are a US reader. This review is my unbiased thanks to them and to Fredrik Backman for a remarkable story which I'd love to tell you more about, but it really does have to be read and admired with little or no idea what you will find within its pages. I suspect readers will take away different messages. I feel that this is a book that we should see on school book lists and book clubs across the world.

I was a bit disappointed that I could not read this book all the way to the end, as it did not download onto my kindle properly. Would love to have the opportunity to read it again in a different format.

Deep in a forest in Sweden, there's a Beartown. It's a tiny community. If you blink you'll miss it, and if you ask around, everyone will tell you the town is finished, has-been. over. But.

They have an ice rink.

And the people in Beartown believe in their junior ice hockey team. They have a shot at winning the nationals. They can do this, these young teenage dreams. They can take Beartown from obscurity and make it prosper again. But. They're boys, so something happens. The Scandal.

"It's only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That's all."

Fredrik Backman wrote A man called Ove - which I loved. And although grumpy men feature here too, there is nothing else similar to the writing in that and this one. They're in two different worlds, both beautifully constructed by the author. What's so very clever about this book is all the different issues, emotions, personalities, confined to the small space, that reflect all the pain and questions in a much bigger place, and prove that humanity is the same the world over. We confront similar issues, make mistakes that echo thorough generations and face failure and triumph with despair and hope.

“The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?”

“One of the plainest truths about both towns and individuals is that they usually don't turn into what we tell them to be, but what they are told they are.”
I loved this book. The writing, the world, the plot, the people, even the ice hockey. It will always be Beartown in my heart, and I'm sure I'll return someday.

For someone who doesn't really care about sport or hockey, i was surprised at how gripped I was. This story revolves around ice hockey and the small town in which it is set lives for hockey. It dictates its social rules, its hierarchy, its friendships and alliances. There is no way of escaping it. So when the junior team is about to make its big break, the team members are basically gods who act like everything is theirs to take. Focusing on different inhabitants, this story is deeply human and expresses a lot of its humanness through the prism of hockey. The tone is distinctly Fredrik Blackman's. So very different from A Man Called Ove and yet so similar in its treatment of human nature.

Not at all what I was expecting, and I feel as though the blurb is a bit misleading and could sell the story so much better, but I really enjoyed this. A little slow to start, but a really powerful story.

And my year of abandonment continues... so perhaps it's me and not the book. Struggled through 12% - roughly 50 pages - during which nothing happens. The whole thing (so far) is people getting ready to go play a hockey match and in 50 pages we haven't even made it to the rink. We've been introduced to at least 15000 people (OK, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration) none of whom have become individuals in my mind. Here's a boy, he's a great hockey player, he's been playing since he was two months old. Here's another boy, he's a great hockey player... etc, etc. Some of the observations of family life are quite humorous, but that's not enough to carry it. Backman is making the point that the town is so run down the success of the hockey team has taken on an exaggerated importance, but he gets the point across very early on and then continues to repeat it endlessly. And while I'm willing to assume from the prologue that the book eventually darkens and develops a plot, I fear I may die of tedium while I wait. So - abandoned at 12%.

This is not that Book. It is another one.

This is not that story - it is another one.

A different story. A story of of passion and compassion. A story of communal mind-sets and beliefs.

A story full of characters, scenes, emotions, descriptions. Full but very readable. Slow paced yet still full.

I knew from very early on just what the scandal was going to be - roughly anyway. I knew what it would be about, when it would happen, where it would happen and who would be the main protagonists. But still I was entranced by the story of how we got there and how people reacted.

The writing for me was very powerful - the use of repeated phrases and sentences was very effective.

And the story of just how brutal hockey and the life in a very small and isolated dying town can be, and the need to conform to these small minds, was chilling.

Looking forward to the sequel.

Wow… This book was not at all what I was expecting, I actually put off reading it because I didn’t think it’d be my thing but…. wow.

Brilliant, powerful, atmospheric, frustrating, emotional, hopeful, beautiful and cold. The writing in this book is incredible, I think I ended up highlighting most of the book.

I have to admit I kind of wish they’d kept the title of this book as Beartown rather than The Scandal for the UK market as this story is about so much more than one event, it’s the story of a town, of a community. Yes there is a scandal (although I personally think that’s the wrong word to describe what happens) but really it’s about the environment that allowed such a thing to happen and the reaction of the residents and neighbours when it does.

It’s about a community that’s slowly being destroyed and has one final hope, one last chance, one thing they can be proud of and how they’ll go to any lengths to protect it. It’s about belief, faith, determination, hope and bravery but also about divisions in class and status, despair, grudges and inequality. It’s also about ice hockey, which may be only a game, but for the residents of Beartown hockey is everything. It both unites them and divides them. It’s their one final hope to save a town in the middle of nowhere which is slowly disappearing.

It’s only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That’s all.
I have to confess I know very little about hockey but for this story you could just as easily substitute in any sport as it’s more about the relationship between the sport and the town, although I suspect hockey was picked because it’s such a hard and violent sport (much like Beartown). Everyone has their hopes pinned on the junior team winning but they all have very different reasons for it. Some see it as a business opportunity, some a chance to escape and move up in the world and some just see it as proof that their town can still win at something.

It’s a very insular community. Small, isolated and fiercely proud of who they are. They have their own hierarchy, rules and beliefs all based around hockey. The more you can do for the team, the more power you have and the more you can get away with. The town is pretty much run by the best players and the sponsors but it’s unwise to ignore the hardcore working class fans either who feel the team belongs to them. Incomers, who don’t know the rules or have the same beliefs aren’t welcome. It’s very old fashioned, with only men allowed to play or even like hockey and the women expected to stay at home and support them. Everything is cold and hard and at times the whole story feels very claustrophobic, particularly when you see how everyone can turn on whoever falls out of line.

There aren’t really any main characters in this story but rather it’s told from multiple perspectives all of the time, jumping from one person to the next every page or two or sometimes every few paragraphs. These multiple view points and swift changes between them make it feel very episodic. I will admit I found it a little confusing in the beginning but it is brilliantly done and really gives you a feel for every aspect of the story. You’re very much in each and every moment and with every character and every single thing that happens feels completely real.

As you would expect there are some characters that are more likeable than others but as with all great stories I found my feelings towards them changing throughout as they developed and we found out more about them. A character I felt sorry for in the beginning turned out to be not very nice and one who didn’t really register, I kind of fell in love with by the end.

The story is slow, particularly in the beginning, but it’s captivating. The writing is beautiful and I found myself taking my time just to enjoy it. The author has such a wonderful way of capturing thoughts and beliefs. I always highlight sentences I like or that speak to me in some way as I read but had to stop myself from just highlighting everything it’s soo good.

I will say that I did find it frustrating in places, there are so many hints of what’s to come it began to drive me crazy, but it was literally impossible to put down. I read the majority of it in a day and this was while I was in the midst of a reading slump. I do think there was a little bit of the emotion missing, it didn’t stay in one place long enough, but it is a truly brilliant book.

I do feel like I have to add that there are a few events which may be triggers (I won’t put details here but happy to discuss in comments) but they are all handled with real sensitivity by the author.

Overall, this is definitely a book I’d recommend even if like me you’ve been put off by the idea of a book about hockey.

As these books are normally prerelease odd mistakes are expected and easy to read round. Unfortunately with this book that wasn’t the case. The typos made it too difficult to read and immerse me into the story. Any words with ‘FI’ in seemed to be missing. Each time I came across these errors it too my mind off the story. I found it unreadable in this edition.

This was a really well written story about a small town that lives for hockey and is rocked by a scandal right before the biggest game ever.
It was a bit predictable but the writer completely nailed the predjudice and roiling emotions of every character in the book, I could not put it down and needed to see how the end panned out, I wasn't disappointed either.
I felt deeply for some of the characters and thought how true to life this sort of situation is, definitely worth a read even if at first it doesn't sound like your kind of book.

“Late one evening towards the end of March a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead and pulled the trigger.”

These are the opening lines of Fredrik Backman’s book and at once the scene is set. The rest of the narrative is taken up with unravelling the events that lead towards this terrible outcome.

The story is set around an ice hockey game. Deep in the Swedish forest is Beartown, an isolated place, run down, dark and cold. It is a town that is obsessed by ice hockey. It desperately needs its junior team to win to bring back to the community a sense of pride to the dying town. A loss and they would lose all hope. A success would give them the things they so urgently need - a new ice rink, new schools, new shops and of course new sponsors for the team. There is not just huge pressure on the actual team. Each person in the town has to make sacrifices and gradually this takes its toll on the family, friendships and loyalty.

The first half of the book starts slowly as the tension builds in the days leading up to the match. Every member of the community is closely examined and we are drawn into their individual stories, as the clock ticks away towards the day of the semi-final. It is interesting to note that ice-hockey is a male game only, the females are side-lined and their role is merely one of loyalty and support. The heroes are the star players and the pressure on these players is huge. I could have done without some of the locker room banter but this is a minor quibble. The actual match is brilliantly described.

The crux of the book is a terrible event that takes place just after the match and the second half deals with the inevitable fall-out from this. The whole community is affected - families are found to be dysfunctional, friends are betrayed, loyalty is lost and the victims become isolated.

It says much for the sheer brilliance of the writing, that this book about ice hockey, which is not to everyone’s taste, set in an isolated town in Sweden and also a translation – overcomes all this to become a compelling and memorable read and ultimately very moving.

I cannot recommend it too highly.

Jane

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Beartown is isolated in the middle of a forest, covered in snow for much of the year and with declining industry. The gap between rich and poor is widening but one thing unites the people of Beartown - hockey. When the junior team gets through to the semi-final of the Championships the town crowds to see them, and when they win there is jubilation. However that same night a terrible crime is committed and this splits Beartown along different lines. Some want it all hushed up, some want justice but only one young man is prepared to fight for what is right.

Being completely honest I found this book slow to develop and then somewhat annoying. I did like the premise of the plot but not the execution.

A different novel to Backman's previous work but just as enjoyable with a more serious side. The writing is so descriptive and the characters are densely woven that you miss them when the book is finished.

The Scandal by Fredrik Backman

‘Late one evening towards the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead’. The Scandal tells the story of how we got to this point.

Beartown is an ice hockey town in the middle of the forest in Sweden that has no tourism and no high-tech industry, but darkness, cold and unemployment. The town needs to win at something and all their hopes are channelled into Beartown Ice Hockey's A team - teenagers who will be playing in the semifinal against a team in the top division in the country. If the team goes on to win the final, the regional council are likely to upgrade the town’s plans and the high school will get a new rink, conference centre, shopping mall and a new injection of tourism and trade. Basically, its future survival depends on the team.

Fredrik Backman introduces a long stream of characters one by one into the story, but his characterisations are so unique that we soon get to know what makes each of them tick. His acute understanding of people, marriage, parenthood, losing a child, stand out, together with his reflective, philosophic astuteness, which add a depth and poignancy to the story.

To understand the plot we have to understand how the team functions. The players have to sacrifice everything, take the pressure, be totally dedicated and show fierce loyalty. ‘The team has to take precedence over the self and the world outside the rink mustn't encroach upon the world inside it’.

Fredrik Backman examines some of the uglier aspects of this highly competitive, elite - male supremacy, racism, homophobia, bullying, the privileged versus the underprivileged and the way money talks. So when a violent crime is committed, the town is divided between those who want to whitewash over it and those who want to see justice done. An individual’s right to justice versus the collective good of the town, personal conscience versus ambition is battled out in this wonderfully scenic but hostile Swedish landscape with its long, harsh winters. A place where ‘when you lose in hockey, it feels like having your heart scalded. When you win, you own the clouds’.

Fredrik Backman’s writing captures that quintessential Swedish trait of spirituality and melancholia, which I thoroughly appreciated in The Scandal and I thank Netgalley, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph and Fredrik Backman for the opportunity to read an advance copy in return for an honest review.

I have read some astonishingly good books recently, including the last book I read, Anatomy of a Soldier which I rated 5 stars and called outstanding.  The same rating and words apply to this very different but equally excellent book The Scandal, published in Sweden as Bjornstad and in the USA as Beartown.  Prior to Janel's review I had seen Beartown around a bit on Instagram but paid it little attention, assuming at some point I may pick it up, knowing little about it and certainly having no idea what a gripping read it would prove to be. 
Set in northern Sweden in the remote fictional town of Beartown, where ice hockey is everything, make no mistake this is neither a sporting dialogue or a hockey tale and absolutely should not be avoided on these counts.  In Beartown, ice hockey is political, it is financial, it is social and it provides community standing, it is EVERYTHING.  Boys play ice hockey and those boys are popular and cool.  Retired players run the team and coach and failed players work in the factory and drink.  Affluent members of the community are sponsors and have a role.  But they all support Beartown and they all know and share the belief that ice hockey is everything and loyalty and commitment to that is a given.
And then something happens that challenges this view, for some it causes a rethink, for others it serves to reinforce their already unshakeable belief.  Because in Beartown the junior ice hockey team are the saviours - more successful than any who have come before them and in with a real chance of winning the league.  And for this sleepy, tired town the notoriety and the cash injection this would bring could change this town, revitalise it, save it from the poverty that is spreading and put it back on the map.  For many it is inconceivable, what is alleged, what is said and for others, what is not said becomes intolerable.
Not the easiest book to review without giving away spoilers, but I didn't know what this book was about prior to reading and I appreciate that and wish for others to have the same experience.  But at its heart this book is about a community with a shared goal and dream and the junior ice hockey team carry this with pride.  Players are given celebrity like status and the community cushions them in leniency, for they are the heroes for this community and so they are indulged.  But within this community are friendships and families, educators in school and ice hockey, influencers in parents and sponsors and it is these relationship dynamics that make this book special. 
Coming of age, the teen friendships are strong, loyal and all encompassing and everyone emerges wiser at the end of this harsh tale.  This book is sharp in observation and tender in dialogue and with the scandal everything is tested and not everything survives.  The characterisation was superb with all characters being multi dimensional and even those who at times behaved repulsively, elicited sympathy in me at other times.  Some I know will stay with me a while.  The ending of this book was satisfying despite some parts left for the reader to decide, for someone who likes all loose ends tied this was fine, it worked well, extremely well, as did the rest of the book.  
Reminiscent of our times perhaps in the status offered to celebrities and the sometimes seemingly different legal and moral codes that can be applied, this book explores all of this plus the perception of women in a male dominated and valued culture - in its extreme in this book where there is no female ice hockey team and only every a supporting role for those of the wrong gender in Beartown.  This raises questions for whose voice is heard, whose voice matters when the male species is so glorified.  Then there is the role of team versus individual and for me, the notion of 'taking one for the team' develops a whole new meaning.   Hugely insightful and eye opening, some of the observations noted surprised me, which I found shocking, this is a book that has enlightened me and I am certain will stay with me, and others as I recommend it everywhere.
Sad and shocking in parts, warm and endearing of others, this is a tale of hard lives, desperation and warped values.  A tale of life, of community, of hope and success of ice hockey and finding a place, a tale of being someone.