Beartown by Fredrik Backman - 80% Derek Dragonfruits 🐉🍉

Beartown is a deeply personal story that is set within a frigid, remote, snowy small town that is hockey-obsessed. The town’s junior team represents massive promise for returning Beartown to its standing as a place people want to live and work and visit.

The story is about the hockey team, but hockey is only the subplot of this story. There are about a dozen characters that have their own personal demons and journeys, and Backman does a rather masterful job juggling all of those stories. The character building is superb for these core characters, and when the book’s central conflict occurs, those characters are really put to the test to reveal who they are.

Personally, I felt that the next batch of characters (there were probably 8-10 more named characters outside of the core ones) became a bit more than the author and reader could chew. By the end of the story, with certain characters, I found myself wondering why we invested snippets of time into their stories earlier on. However, they do all play a role, however tangential, in the final resolution. It’s a minor gripe.

Part of this may come from some translation gaps, but I found some of the hockey terminology to be a bit off. There are some scenes that refer to players by positional labels that aren’t common in hockey, and one scene in particular features a character named Amat doing something that no legitimate hockey player would do in-game. But again, this isn’t a sports fiction book — I cut Backman some slack in lacking precise accuracy to capture natural hockey action.

Overall, his writing style is outstanding and this book will make you feel deeply. There are some cheesy cliches that recur across characters, but it helps to build meaning across their stories. An enjoyable read that really evokes emotion in the latter half of the book.

Darrow is a Red, working in the mines below the surface of Mars to help make the planet habitable. Society is divided into a hierarchy of colors, and Reds are nearer the bottom than the top. Rugged and hardened, Darrow is inspired by the dreams of his wife, Eo, to disrupt this forced world order.

The path to rebellion is a long one that I presume goes well into this series of books, and doesn't end with Red Rising. Nonetheless, Darrow finds himself on a mission placed among the Golds, a higher color who share few characteristics with low colors like Darrow. The story that unfolds revolves around Darrow's pursuit to integrate himself into high society and put himself in the driver's seat for future disruption. He finds himself in a high-stakes game that feels like a blend of Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, and The Last Kingdom.

It took a little while to get going, for me... but Red Rising didn't disappoint. I'll be continuing the series with Golden Son, for sure.