Finished: Bear Town (Backman) I loved this book! I've been thinking about reading it for a long, long time and so glad I did. Frederik Backman does amazing character development, even with the characters who are normally non-sympathetic....he finds something human in them all and puts it all on the page. Amazing. This could have just been another teen hurts teen, teen gets revenge, etc. etc., but it was so much more than that. Beartown is the name of the small northern town, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, that is resting all it's hopes and dreams on their junior hockey team....a team made up of 15 to 17 year old boys. Hockey dominates the town history, the town businesses, the town economy, the town hearts, but the town is fading. Many of the hockey backers in the town feel that the only way the town will stay afloat is if the proposed "hockey" high school gets built there, along with a new rink, bringing in more jobs, more businesses, etc. The hope for this now exists because the best 17 year old to come along since the General Manager himself was a 17 year old is leading their team. His name is Kevin, and he's a machine. He's the boy next door. He's the straight A student. He's the boy all the other boys want as a best friend and all the girls want as a boyfriend. He's obsessed about being perfect in his hockey games. He's got rich parents who expect the world of him, who support the team, but who, oddly enough, don't personally support him. He longs for their affection, but his father is more about teaching lessons, doing his business, going over game stats after games that he doesn't attend, and on and on. His mother basically goes along with his dad. We feel early on for Kevin. He's got one person in the world who understands him, and that's his best friend Benji. Benji is the muscle who protects Kevin on the ice and allows him to score. Benji is also and exceptional player, but he and Kevin have been best friends since they were seven years old, and Benji has always protected Kevin. Benji's father committed suicide when he was young and he was raised by his mother and three older sisters, all who play different, but positive roles in his life. Benji has a tendency to get in trouble alot at school, but is also forgiven quite often as he's got the soulful eyes and personality that make teachers, etc., want to nurture him. Kevin and Benji's friendship is tested and eventually severed when Kevin does the unthinkable and rapes a 15 year old high school girl that he's been flirting with. The girl just happens to be Maya, the daughter of the General Manager, Peter Andersson, who was the last huge star of the town. Peter had been recruited to the NHL and played for a few seasons, but battled injuries. He married his high school sweetheart and they had a son, Isak and little Maya. As Peter learned that he would no longer be able to play hockey, their young son fell incurably ill and died. Shattered, Peter was offered by his old coach and mentor, Sune, to come back to Beartown as GM of the hockey club. The author writes all these characters so, so superbly. He puts you right in the skin of Peter, his wife Kira, Maya, Sune, Benji, and even Kevin. Before his daughter is raped, Peter's biggest dilemma is that the hockey board and sponsors want to fire Sune as the A coach (the level the boys go after juniors), and move the junior coach, David, up with his boys Kevin, Benji, Bobo, Lyt, and the rest....and they expect Peter to do the firing...to let go his lifelong friend and mentor. Before the rape, we learn all about the main team players and we meet Amat, a 15 year old on the boys team, who is so amazingly fast on the ice that he will uncharacteristically be moved up to the junior team to help them win the upcoming semi-final. Amat and his mother live in the poorest part of town, and his mother is the janitor for the ice rink. He would love nothing more than to be successful at hockey and provide for his mother. He's also in love with Maya, and has been since they were kids. In Beartown, the town is so small that all the kids, from primary grades to high school share the same building. They all know one another and have forever. We meet parents, hockey-crazed parents, and more. We meet the teachers and principal that try to guide the kids. We meet the crusty old bar owner whose husband passed away years before, but she's still the respected matriarch of all the old hockey players who never made it to the big leagues, but now work in the town factory, or garage, or anywhere they can get work. We meet Amat's best friends, who along with Amat, came from another country and are outcasts at school...and basically bullied by the members of the junior hockey team on a daily basis, with the huge Bobo and Lyt leading the charge. We meet Bobo's family, who are really good people, and see the dynamic between them and their son and how, truly, Bobo is a good person who is just caught up in trying to fit in himself. When Amat is moved up to the junior team, the day before the semifinal, many of the team are furious, but not near as furious as their parents! The team, you see, has complete faith and trust in their coach, David. He's had them all since they were seven years old. Though disappointed, David manages to make Bobo feel good about himself, while at the same time telling him that Amat will take his place in the semi. In an unexpected turn, Amat and Bobo become friends, as they are really far more alike than either of them ever knew. There's so much detail to the book, that, as usual, I can't possibly recap every detail of every character. That's what reading the book is for. :-) I will say that I adore Benji and he is going to go on my Favorite Character's list, which I don't update often.

So, when the book opens, it starts with two teenagers out in the woods...one who puts a gun to the other's head and pulls the trigger. Then, the story is how they got there.  So, as I read, I kept trying to figure out which of these kids was going to kill who. Kevin's rape of Maya happens about halfway through the book, at the after party at his house, after they win the semi-final. As usual, his parents are out of town, and all the kids from the town are at his house and drinking at the party. As Kevin flirts with Maya, we see Benji get disgusted and leave the party much to Kevin's objection. When Benji indicates that he disapproves of Kevin chasing after a 15 year old, it's the first sign that maybe Benji' knows that Kevin gets his way no matter what, and sometimes it's not a good way. So, Maya goes up to Kevin's room with him, giddy thinking maybe Kevin will kiss her or want to be her boyfriend, never in her wildest dreams thinking anything more would happen, but Kevin is so used to nobody saying no to him, that he just assumes she will want to have sex. As she says no and struggles, he holds her down forcefully, coming close to strangling her and rapes her. When Amat, one of the heroes of the semi-final game, goes looking for Maya and is told she went upstairs with Kevin, he dashes upstairs. This is the girl he loves, and he doesn't know what he's going to do, but he certainly doesn't want her to fall for Kevin. He bursts into Kevin's room in time to see Kevin raping Maya. Amat is a distraction enough for Maya to get free and run. Maya makes her way home and won't return any of Amat's frantic calls. She locks herself in her room, showers away the shame, washes all her clothes, burns her ripped blouse, tells her parents the next few days she is sick, misses school, and basically decides she will bear the brunt of this horror by herself. She knows it will destroy her parents if they know what has happened to her. Amat tries to go about his week, but he's basically in shock. Benji skips school alot and even a couple of practices. As the week passes and leads up to the final game that will be played that weekend, everyone is on edge for far different reasons. Maya's been raped. Peter is going to have to fire Sune. David needs his team to win the final. Amat is struggling between being part of the team and telling someone about Maya. Benji is completely out of sorts. Kevin has the weight of the game and town on his shoulders, and possibly the fact that he raped Maya, but it's hard to tell. Finally, on the day of the final game, right before her father is about to leave to get on the team bus, Maya's breaks down and tells her best friend, Ana, what happened, who convinces her to tell her parents right away so Kevin doesn't rape anyone else. So, Maya goes outside moments before her dad gets in his car to go, and tells her parents the whole story. They are devastated, furious, distraught, and they contact the police. As the team bus is about to pull away from the rink to go to the final, the police board the bus and remove Kevin. None of the team or parents know what's going on and everyone gets in an uproar....everyone but Amat and Benji, who sit quietly on the bus. Amazingly, it's Benji who comes to the team's morale rescue and gives a better pep talk to the team than coach David ever could, and they head off for their final not knowing what is going on with their star player, who they will now play without. As you would expect, most of the town tries to place the blame on Maya. They say she willingly went with Kevin and consented to sex. They say the fact that her parents waited a week to report it, until the day of the big game, is all about revenge for the board making Peter fire Sune, and on and on. It is horrible the way everyone reacts. We see a few glimpses, though, of people who think that Kevin might have actually raped Maya, among them Kevin's own mother. As Kevin is interrogated by the police, along with his father and his powerful attorney, the team goes on to play their hearts out in the final, most of them "for Kevin!!", but lose in overtime. When practically the entire town decides to meet and vote Peter out as the General Manager of the hockey club, Amat finally finds his guts (despite the fact that Kevin's father has tried to bribe him with money and a new job for his mother to stay quiet), and he marches in and speaks to the town meeting. He tells them exactly what he saw in detail. Many people do then believe Maya, but most still do not. Amat is then hunted down by his team, who believe that no matter what, a team should stay loyal to each other, and he is mercilessly beaten. As we see Bobo run to put on his hoodie and join the other team mates, a huge disappointment falls, until you realize that Bobo is there to protect Amat, and they basically both get the tar beat out of them. And, most sad of all, the police finally close the case and drop it due to insufficient evidence, since in a weeks time it was basically all wiped away and has become a he-said, she-said case. So, we come to the end and it's Maya who goes with Ana's father's shotgun and hunts down Kevin where he is running in the forest at night. She pulls the gun and forces him to his knees. He cries, and wets himself and begs her not to do it. She pulls the trigger and he feels himself dying. However, he's not dying, because she took the shotgun shell out. She walks away happy in the knowledge that he will forever be as afraid of the dark as she now is. In the wrap up, the town, mostly due to the crusty old bar owner and the former hockey players, vote to keep Peter as GM of the Beartown hockey club. Sune is not fired as the Beartown A team coach. They're not even sure they'll have an A team or a hockey club if they have no sponsors left. One of the main sponsors, who played on the same hockey team as Peter, finds his conscience and stays in Beartown instead of abandoning to Hed, and says he'll promote the team. Coach David is offered the job of coaching the Hed A team, the team that beat Beartown in the finals. Most of the team and their rich parents, including Kevin, Lyt, and the rest, abandon Beartown and join the Hed team. Kevin's mother believe Amat, and comes to Maya's house to apologize for her son, even though the case has been dropped. She falls to her knees, sobbing, and Maya falls to her knees to help lift her back up. Peter, Kira, Maya and little brother, Leo, grow closer as a family again and do family things. Needless to say, no hockey high school will be built in Beartown. As Peter walks through the stadium halls, up walks Benji. He wants to stay and play in Beartown, even though he'd have far more opportunity to shine in Hed. He's no longer Kevin's best friend. So, as the little kids come to skate camp, the four teenagers who are there who will go on to play Beartown hockey the next year are Benji, Amat, Bobo and Amat's bullied best friend, Zacharias. I can't say enough how well written this book is. AND...I didn't even realize that it was set in another country until the amount that Kevin's father tried to bribe Amat with was 5000 kronor. That is Swiss money!!! The whole time I thought I was reading about an American town and all along it wasn't in America. Just shows you had sad it is to know this could happen literally anywhere, and in my brain, it was happening in America. There is going to be a sequel to this book in June and I will definitely be buying that to read!!!!