I first read Beartown, which is a prequel to this book. I really believe a reader needs to read Beartown first in order to connect with the many characters. I am a big Benji fan, mostly because of the character development in Beartown. Beartown left us hanging as to what happened with several key characters. While I liked finding out the answer, I felt the author repeated too frequently, "Hed hates Beartown" and "Beartown hates Hed." I felt I was repeatedly getting hit over the head with those words, rather than just letting the story get most of that message across. It felt like the author truly had a novellette, but had to repeat words to make it long enough to make it a novel.

Another solid Backman! This one and its predecessor, Beartown, were a little harder reading than his earlier works, but he is one great storyteller and I am a faithful fan forever.

'....hockey...When you strip away all the nonsense surrounding it, the game is simple: everyone gets a stick, there are two nets, two teams. Us Against You' ____ Fredrik Backman

I really enjoyed Beartown. However, it felt like a complete book and I really didn't see the need for a sequel, so it was with some reluctance that I read Us Against You. There is no denying that once again, it is an extremely well written book and the characterisation is excellent, but as much as I enjoyed it, I still feel that my initial concerns were correct and I just didn't enjoy it as much as Beartown. However, don't take my word for it, as looking at the numerous 4 and 5 reviews here, I'm very much in the minority with this opinion.

Many thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this ARC for which I have given my voluntary and unbiased review.

I almost feel guilty saying that I didn't love Us Against You . I absolutely loved Beartown and it was one of my favorite books of 2017 because it was so different than Backman's usual books. However, Us Against You was just too much for me. While Beartown was intense, it still had moments of lightness that distracted from the really dark central plot. That's lacking in Us Against You which is pretty much all intensity, all sadness all the time. It's almost overwhelming with darkness to the point that it feels like grief porn. Ultimately, I don't feel that Us Against You added anything to the experience of reading Beartown. I don't regret reading Us Against You although if there's a third book in the series I can't say that I'll be in a hurry to read it.

My Goodreads review, shared via Facebook & with my online book club:

Wow. Another great book by Fredrik Backman. I just love this author. And Beartown.

Loved this almost as much as Beartown. it's a wee bit heavy handed on the clever old geezer narration, but not enough to spoil the joy of reading about these lovable, flawed residents of Beartown and their love of the game hockey. Which is so much more than a game.

Definitely 5* I read “Beartown” last year and while not a hockey fan, I got past that part because my sons played a variety of sports most of their school days. This book is even better than the author’s other books that I also enjoyed! He keeps getting better and better! One plot device had me hooked! In a short paragraph or even just a phrase I’d read something that hinted at what was to come. Barely a hint or comment. Had me turning the pages! Couple of times I though, “Oh No!” “Or, not Benji!” Benji is my favorite character in both of the Beartown hockey novels. Although I liked so many other characters. Mr. Backman has such a great talent in writing characters I actually ‘feel’ for. And really care what happens to them. I noted so many sections of the book that if it was a print book the post-it notes would be all over the place! Such a way with words! (Obviously I do not share this talent). I’ll not go into the plot because others have done so and much, much better than I can. I want to add that one not need to be a hockey fan or even a sports fan (IMHO) to enjoy this book. Emotions are all over the place too. Yes, hockey is a big part of the book but so is local politics yet it did not detract from the story for me. I rarely, if ever, re-read a book but this one might just get a second reading some day!
A great big THANK YOU to Atria Books through NetGalley.
(posted on Goodreads)

In this the follow-up to Beartown, we find the beloved hockey team in turmoil because most of the Beartown players have left to go play for Hed. A newcomer who has been handpicked to be the new hockey coach tries to put the team together and overcome a whole lot of history. This story is full of drama about the relationships formed between the hockey players, the town is torn apart because of loyalties and the centerpiece, the game.

I love Mr. Bachman's writing. Mr. Backman is a gifted writer that had me yelling at the pages, crying, laughing and rooting for the Beartown team. The writing flows beautifully. I am hoping there is a movie because this is a wonderful story that makes you want to attend a Beartown hockey game just to see the reaction of the townsfolk. I hope he continues to write about Beartown because there are more stories to tell that happens to have hockey as the centerpiece.

I recommend you buy this book and then you're going to want to read “Beartown” that introduces us to the town because it’s a great story. If you're one who doesn’t care for the sport of hockey, don’t allow that to prevent you from missing out on a wonderful read.

Fredrik Backman has done it again!! This book is a sequel to Beartown. It is not absolutely necessary to read Beartown since the author does a splendid job of filling in the details. Every sentence in this book is carefully crafted for maximum impact on the reader. It's what makes this book so powerful. I wish I could put my thoughts down more succinctly in reviewing this book. You must read it, and i guarantee you will enjoy it as much as I did. The characters are well developed and you will come to know and love and understand each one of them. Highly recommend this book.

This is a different sort of book. The events aren't exactly linear; we don't follow the town and the characters day by day. It's almost more like a collection of linked short stories. The reader has to keep in mind what's going on with everyone and overlay each new character's actions and experiences.

Reading Beartown first will definitely add to the experience, but probably isn't required.

Backman is amazing. That is all. I'm one of those "all-Backman-all-the-time" girls, like I will read ANYTHING from him, but this follow-on to Beartown is just so phenomenal. I found myself highlighting (a FICTION BOOK??) throughout, as he has such an artful way with words. He can dissect the human experience down to a well-placed sentence that just makes you smile or tears your heart out in three words. On that note: prepare for your heart to be torn out. Gah. SO much crying.
After Beartown (the novel) ends, Beartown (the town) continues on, attempting to figure out where they go from here. Most of their star hockey players have left for neighboring Hed, and those that have stayed are looking at the dissolution of the Beartown Hockey Club. It's a mess. Keep reading. You don't have to like hockey, or even winter, to find something that will resonate with you in this book.

This is Bachman's continuation of his previous story about hockey in Beartown. But it is about so much more than hockey! A wonderful book

This book. Fredrick Backman. My heart. I have NEVER highlighted any book as much as this. I have never cried as much to a book as I did to this one. I will be buying this book for a physical version once it releases. Backman can build you up, tear you down, and build you right back up and it's completely worth it. I will recommend this series to anyone and everyone and I will reread it for life. I can't explain how much I connect to Maya, to Benji, to Amat, to Beartown.

This book is just as good as the first.

Us Against You is my most highly anticipated book of 2018, and I was SO EXCITED to read this.

It’s just as captivating as Beartown. This is a must-read for those that loved Beartown. And it definitely lived up to my expectations.

Backman’s writing is just stellar, and the best that I’ve ever encountered. He sprinkles philosophy on parental love, friendship, marriage, power, loyalty, love and hate throughout the book. Like Beartown, I found myself nodding and highlighting so many quotes because it was so darn thought provoking. Backman should write self-help books because he’s so insightful.

This book is definitely a character study like Beartown. The stories of Kira, Leo, Bobo, Benji’s sisters, Janette, and others are extended in this book. Leo's story develops as he deals with his feelings with his sister’s rape. We get to know the members of The Pack, a powerful group with a deep love of hockey, their town, and make their own rules.

There are so many themes in this book that continue from Beartown, - coming of age, marriage, ethical decisions, family priorities, good vs. evil, hate, love, self-doubt. This book also has a dark side with violence, harassment, bullying, prejudice, insecurities, jealousy.

We are introduced to new characters like Richard Theo, a manipulating politician that acts as a savior and a snake. We get to know the new A-team coach, Elizabeth Zackell, who completely shakes up the team and the standard way of doing things. We learn about Vidar, the bad boy – troublemaker goalie with a rap sheet.
Interestingly, this book is even less about hockey games than it was in Beartown. The first puck wasn’t even in play until 75% in the book.

You don’t need to read Beartown to enjoy this book (however, I strongly recommend it!) because Backman does an excellent job of weaving in the backstory so that the reader understands it, without retelling it completely. I appreciated this because it made me recall parts of the Beartown plot without having to reread it.

I savored this book and didn't rush through it because I knew that it was going to be good. And I was in mourning when it ended, because I wanted it to go on.

Us Against You is an unforgettable sequel to Beartown and it’s just as good as the first. It has everything that you love about Beartown, and more. I think it’s incredible, and for me, I don’t think any book will be better than this one for 2018.

I received an advance copy of this book from Atria Books; many thanks for the privilege.

I have enjoyed several of this author's books. I did read "Beartown" and felt like I couldn't connect to the town and people. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to like this one, but I was pleasantly surprised. "Beartown" did get really good in the last part of it and "Us Against You" picks up right where the first book ends. I felt that there was a lot of telling going on and not a lot of dialogue. Since I was familiar with the characters, it was easier to know who every one was and what they contributed to the plot. The plot did drag on a bit, but I felt better connected to the characters and wanted to see that they all turned out okay by the end.

A great follow up to Beartown. Loved seeing what happens to the characters and getting some closure on the situations in Beartown. Keep them coming Mr. Backman

Following the revealing events in Fredrik Backman's Beartown, Us Against You details the town's struggle to come to terms with the inevitable backlash and ramifications of those events on the town and their hockey team. 

In light of the actions of Beartown's star player against the daughter of the hockey club's general manager, the team's future in Beartown hangs in the balance as sponsors and funding abandon the scandal-ridden team, and town, in favor of neighboring Hed. As the rivalry between Beartown and Hed is pervasive, the tension between the players and people of the two towns reaches a violent head as provocation from both sides, accompanied by the meddling of an ambitious local politician, needles these devoted people into committing fierce actions with lasting consequences. 

Where the first installment in this series focused on Beartown and its hockey with the story and action presented as a boiling kettle, this installment is the whistle of that kettle as the tension finds outlets of escape, primarily in the form of various vicious and violent acts. Using the same narrative technique as Beartown with roving perspectives from the townspeople involved, the structure was familiar, but the text repeatedly reminds readers of basic, already established facts about each character throughout the narrative, which impacted my ability to connect with the emotional struggle of each of the characters as closely as I had in Beartown. There were quite a few new characters whose perspectives were gained that seemed to primarily be a vehicle to add political drama to an already powerful story, which weighed the narrative down with larger overarching schemes instead of the fascinating intimate tensions that made previous novel so incredibly strong.

Overall, I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Beartown, beaten down by the loss of the hockey championship, the disbanding of their club and the loss of the best players to the neighboring town, lives and dies by hockey. Life is pretty grim after the loss, but fate steps in and lends a hand. Hope springs eternal in some community members and while the result is not at all what was expected, Beartown is all the better for it. A worthy sequel to its predecessor, perhaps even better. Recommending will be no problem!

Fredrik Backman's novel "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry" is one of my favorite books of all time, so it's difficult to read another one of his novels and not compare it to that one. As much as I wanted to like "Beartown" and "Us Against You," this sequel to "Beartown," they just didn't affect me the same way "My Grandmother" did.

In many ways, I felt like this sequel was unnecessary, as it spent a lot of time rehashing many of the same issues that were brought up in "Beartown." What bothered me the most about "Beartown," and this book as well, was the way that adults took out their agression on children and manipulated them for their own needs. I'd like to think that the majority of decent adults wouldn't stand in a hockey rink and direct vile chants of "Whore, rapist, f*g" at children, so I found that premise a bit difficult to believe. But maybe that's the point...it was supposed to make me uncomfortable.

I feel like the characters and the plot of this book lacked complexity. It was enjoyable to read, but it didn't challenge me or move me in the same way that other books do. The plot and the characters' actions were pretty predictable and repetitive leading up to the inevitable ending.

Maybe I would feel differently about this book if I had a greater interest in sports. It was a good read, but nothing that will stick with me the way "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry" did.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Atria Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Beartown was my favourite book of 2017, so I was super happy to get an advance copy of the sequel, Us Against You, and I even re-read Beartown to get back up to speed on all the characters. I loved Beartown just as much the second time around, but I was really nervous about this one because I didn't think Beartown really needed a sequel.

Us Against You starts where Beartown leaves off. It's summer, but everyone is anxiously awaiting to see what will happen to their beloved hockey team in the fall and Peter is worried that there may not even be a hockey club to be anxious about. Kevin and his family disappear overnight, but Maya's family decides to stay. Beartown is their town as much as anyone else's and they believe they shouldn't be made to feel unwelcome.

Most of the former Junior team has followed their coach David to Hed, but Amat, Bobo, and Benji remain behind in Beartown. In the absence of the former team and coach, several newcomers arrive on the scene and hockey and politics become more intertwined than ever.

Fredrik Backman's writing is just as beautiful as ever in this book. The novel continues in the same voice as its predecessor and it is just as lyrical and insightful. My copy of Beartown is tabbed everywhere with quotes that I loved and I tabbed a lot of well written passages in this book as well. But sadly, some parts of this book just didn't work for me.

As a standalone, Beartown offers a varied perspective of the plot. Backman takes us on a journey with his characters and their perspectives are all incredibly moving. Beartown is very much a character driven book, but it still had a strong plot to carry it forward. Us Against You is still a character driven novel, but the plot isn't as strong and it struggled to carry all these voices.

The plot is slower than Beartown and there is a lot of political drama that is just too convoluted and honestly, doesn't even really matter that much. Backman tells us in the synopsis that before the end of the novel someone will be dead, and he builds his plot around this climax. The drama builds between Hed and Beartown and hate and violence lead to more hate and violence, culminating in tragedy for everyone.

Backman continues with some of the themes from Beartown, examining the long-lasting impact that rape can have on a girl and her family, and the sense of community that comes from a shared love of sports. Backman also explores the compounding impact of violence and our resistance to change. Hockey has always been seen as a men's club and those men can feel very threatened when faced with equality politics and will try and protect themselves at the expense of anyone who does not fit within their idea of who hockey is for.

So I very much loved the themes of this book, but I struggled more with the perspectives. We're given a lot of new perspectives in this book, which is great, but we also lose a lot of the perspectives from the previous book of characters we've already come to know and love. I really liked that this book expanded to include Maya's brother Leo and more of William Lyt, but it also included a lot about the Pack and this is where it got bogged down for me. I wasn't really interested in Peter's feud with the Pack or with Richard Theo's schemes. Richard Theo serves to mount the tension within the towns, but I don't think he was needed. His schemes were too convoluted and the characters could have carried the plot without him. Hed and Beartown would have been at each other's throats, regardless of the drama with the factory jobs and the political scheming.

I thought the novel had a great start with William and Leo fighting and the breakdown of the Andersson Family. I thought Kira and Peter's storyline was so heartbreaking, but it felt so real and I could empathize with how the strain of losing your firstborn and your daughter being raped would slowly start to breakdown your marriage. Likewise, I love where Backman takes us with Maya, Ana, and Benji in this book. Benji was one of my favourite characters in Beartown and you just ache for him reading his story. He is one of those totally perfect, imperfect characters. I thought all of these storylines were strong and they really carried the novel for me.

But like I said, I struggled with the Pack. I didn't care about Teemu and I thought Vidar came in too late into the story for me to really care about him either. I get what the Pack means to Teemu, Woody, Spider, and Vidar, but I think Backman communicates this concept of family and community just as well through his other characters. Likewise, the Pack served to escalate the violence between Hed and Beartown, but again, I think this theme could have been carried just as well through other characters like Lyt. I really liked the idea of Vidar and I'm thrilled Backman decided to spend some time on the goalie, which is an essential part of any team, but Vidar lacked developed at the expense of the rest of the Pack. I would rather see his character fully realized than have all the secondary Pack characters.

I am disappointed that David didn't have a voice in this story and that Amat and Bobo's voices were limited. I really liked all of these characters and I really think Backman could have given them more in this story. We hear very little from the Beartown players who switch to Hed. They go to Hed to play for David, not Hed and I would have liked to hear more about how they felt about suddenly playing for their rival and the struggle of losing the support of their community. It's kind of taken for granted that the boys and their families would all just change allegiance to Hed (and that Hed would accept them), but they were all Beartown born and still lived there, so I felt that suddenly playing for their rival would be a real source of conflict for some of the players and that they would struggle to be accepted by Hed and the other members of the existing A-team.

My biggest struggle with this book though is the emotional pacing. I felt this book was more emotionally manipulative than the first book and the writing started to feel a little repetitive. Beartown is an incredibly powerful, emotional read and Backman uses a lot of the same phrases and wording to try and create those cathartic moments, but they lose their impact when you read them 3 and 4 times throughout the novel.

This book is just damn depressing. Like I said, Beartown is definitely an emotional read, but it still has hopeful and happy moments to contrast the sad ones. Us Against You has very few hopeful moments. It is just down, down, down for the entire novel and any happy or hopeful plot points are just too small to bring this book back up. I felt like I was falling into the pits of despair throughout the whole book and I never had any chance of climbing back out.

We're told in Beartown that 2 of the boys will turn professional and that the young girl, Alicia, will grow up to be the best hockey player Beartown has ever seen. So I can't help but assume that Beartown must succeed at some point for these players to achieve success and I want to read about it! I don't know if Backman has a third book planned for this series, but I could see this having another book and I really hope it does because I need to see Beartown transformed. I've seen them beaten down and shit on and now I need to see them heal and grow. I didn't think Beartown needed a sequel, but now that it has one, I really need it to be a trilogy so that this can be the dark middle book. This works as the angst-y middle book, but not as the finale. This story feels unfinished and I really hope it gets a (better) conclusion.

For this reason it's a hard book to rate. Granted, I am holding Backman to a higher standard because of how phenomenal Beartown was, and I still loved the writing and several of the character arcs in Us Against You, but I need more from this series now! I think there's a lot of potential for a final book and if that is the case, it would change my review. I don't mind being brought low in book 2 if you're going to raise me up in book 3. But if this is where it ends, I am definitely left disappointed.