Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Ever since I read the synopsis for this book I was intrigued by it. I wanted to know the fate of this forest town engulfed by a love/hate relationship with hockey. Before reading I had no interest in hockey and knew absolutely nothing about it. Despite that, by the end I cared a lot about hockey in Beartown.
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.
In past reviews of the books I've read, my number one complaint is that the book starts out slow and that I'm disinterested in the plot, and I'll be honest I almost complained about it with this book too. However while trying to analyze my thoughts about Beartown, I realized that the reason the last half of the book was so significant and impactful to me was because of the plot and character development in the first half of the book, which is something I typically find boring in a book. My attachment was not with just one character, it was with a majority of them. In the second half of the book, the relationships between Maya and Ana and Maya and her parents made me cry. Nobody was willing to back down and let Maya fall into a hole, especially Kira. What was surprising to me is that Maya was the one to bring Kira back up because they were strong. I could really feel this because I could connect it to my own relationship with my mom and how we've coped in difficult times.
Another thing I appreciated about Beartown was instead of simply describing the other characters and their current situations it kind of switched perspectives, which I enjoyed a lot. It enhanced the story and made it a lot better than it would've been otherwise. This was one of the main reasons why by the end of the book I had an attachment with the majority of the characters.
I'm excited to read the next book!