Us Against You
Ratings181
Average rating4.4
‘One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.'
I absolutely loved Beartown and this book was a great sequel to it.
Beartown is still trying to heal and recover from the events of the previous book when the community hears that most of the ice hockey players will start playing for the rival community team.
In this sequel we see our beloved characters grow and face new challenges, we see their hearts being broken and their strength to start over. We are also introduced to new characters who will own part of our heart.
As the previous book, the story covers heavy topics such as sexuality, gender roles, family, leadership and politics.
I know since the first book my heart will be broken but I still want to know how the story will end. I can´t wait for the third book to be out.
P.S:
‘Mum. You taught me that I don't have to have dreams. I can have goals.'
This is definitely something I want to teach my daughter, thank you Frederik for putting it into words.
Such a wonderful series!
On par with Back man's “A Man Called Ove,” one of my all-time favorites.
Fabulous character development.
A gut wrenching, but also insightful and, ultimately, uplifting narrative
Okok, this was fine. A pretty decent and quiality was mid. There was not much that stood out to me but also can not say it was not good. Just pretty mid to be honest. Maybe a little better than good.
I enjoyed the overall story really well
Wasn't sure where the story would go after the first book, but the beginning takes the next part of the ‘saga' in a natural, logical, and smart direction. It even levels-up the stakes with new characters that come with intrigue and mystery surrounding them from the get-go creating what feels like a fresh conflict in the same world built in the original story. #2 jumps right back in close to where the last one left off, but in a good way- with pace, intrigue, and progression that the history of #1 allows it to build upon. Good groundwork was done in building the new characters, while additional layers to everyone, and almost everything, were exposed along the way. Really sharp use of storytelling devices, structure, and writing-style continued to move things along at a very good and engaging pace. This is especially evident in the countless teases of the future fate of many of characters before filling in some, but not all, of the blanks later on. The openings to a lot of chapters were very effective in creating mystery and intrigue around what big happenings are to come. Also featured strong use of the bait-and-switch around a big climax heading into the last third that showed really clever writing, as you only see/read what the author wants you to. While I liked the first book and moved onto the second one quickly, I liked #2 even more.
3.5 rounded upwards
a grand portrayal of a small town, a bit of a mess yet so sincere and so committed to the stories it tells. for every questionable or unnecessary bit of writing (or lack of writing - seriously, why was there so little focus on amat?) there's two moments that flat out made me want to cry. very clearly the middle child of a trilogy, there's a lot of set-up that is never acted upon which is quite clearly intended for book 3 (leo, alicia, etc etc). and for how blunt the metaphors and foreshadowing can be, i also find them incredibly effective. there's a certain implication about benji's fate, for example, that's been frequently set-up from book one and it still hits hard.
in short: some things could be chopped off or toned down a bit, yet it's ultimately a very cohesive and poignant piece of fiction. maybe the sort of thing that i won't love in a few years, yet for the time being it's really clicked.
In the wake of what happened to Maya and Kevin's family moving, the coach moves to Hed, leaving Beartown with no coach and takes half the team with him. Tensions reach insurmountable heights but that doesn't stop Beartown.
A new team takes shape around Amat, a super quick player and a brand new female coach. Benji, the intense lone wolf; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker and freshly free thanks to a dirty politician, all breathe new life into the team. As the first match between Hed and Beartown approaches, can Beartown recover from the death of one of their own?
This book hurt me so bad. Fredrik Backman sure doesn't mind killing people off.
Still a massive lover of Benji's. The whole team is now built around him and he is slaying it. Even without Kevin he finds something to push his passion into. Really loved how Maya picked herself up and Ana really came into her own too. The whole town has to go through so much but they always rally. You can see where the people make their mistakes and how they come back from them is a true testament to their survival. They all have the bear in them and I LOVE that about this series. It makes you bleed inside for the characters.
The pace is a little on the slower side but honestly, I kind of enjoyed it.
The characters wove their stories into my heart and I couldn't help shedding tears for their wins and their losses.
5 stars!! Book 3 to come
Fredrik Backman's insightfulness is transformative. He writes in a way that is powerful enough to shift the way we think about people and society. I can't entirely describe what his writing makes me feel, but I can reiterate what I wrote in my review of Beartown: it's incredibly moving and beautiful.
I rated Us Against You lower than Beartown because I didn't love it quite as much. There were some storylines that I didn't enjoy reading as much as others, such as the focus on the town's
When I started this I thought “not as good as Beartown” but by the end Backman made me care about the characters again, damn him!!
I kind of new what was expecting going in, so why was I so disturbed by the excessive grimness of the book? Hard to say. As always this author pushes situations and cliches to the limit as emotional tools. As a person who doesn't understand anything about hockey, I started to question if the situations described have any resemblance with possible realities.
On the other hand, the writing style is powerful, and the characters have a way of staying with you, so maybe I fell a little bit under the emotional manipulation. I'm not sure if I'll read the third book when it will be published in English.
I was so happy to be able to get this book so soon after reading Beartown. This is a continuation.
Beartown is not a nice town, but I like hearing about the characters and events. I can't wait to get book #3.
I didn't enjoy this one whatsoever, but it's still Backman so it's well written and has lines every so often that really make you think, so it skirts by with a 3 star by the hairs on its chinny chin chin.
Here's what I think happened. I think Backman did Beartown, and then his community got together and took him hostage and was like, “you didn't portray hockey as important enough, you better DO IT AGAIN BUT THIS TIME, THE HOCKEY IS POSITIVE.”
There's a lot of things I didn't like, but a good amount of them are spoilers. The first problem I had is that I don't think this book justified itself. After finishing it, I do not think one storyline in it needed to be told. Obviously Backman can write whatever he feels he wants to, but nothing really came together at any point. It was just a bunch of people and once in a blue moon, something happened. The first half of the book is excruciatingly melodramatic, wallowing in the events of the first book. (which, for certain characters, aka the ones that were directly effected, makes sense. But literally half the book is people just pouting “we want hockey and now there's no hockey, boo hoo”).
There's also a political storyline with the hockey that is, for my personal taste, literally the least interesting thing a person could read. That one's on me, I'll take the hit here.
The way hockey is portrayed in this book is much more positive and central than the first book. This provides a disconnect because it was very obvious that the hockey culture was the problem in the first book, but the narrator doubles down and constantly talks about just how fucking GREAT AND WONDERFUL hockey is. I hated this, not sure if that was intentional or not but I doubt it.
The constant refrain of, “it's not important. It's just sports” as some sort of profound “oh wow sports can totally change your life, why didn't I see it before!” Epiphany was REALLY grating on me. I don't think anybody suggests sports are NOT important to the people playing them, and that they obviously can heavily impact your life. So this just seemed like a really stupid and bizarre thing to keep repeating and flies directly in the face of the first book, where the sports culture is VERY MUCH the problem that makes the central event so troubling. Yeah, sports are important, but toxic hockey cultures and entire towns worshipping teenager's abilities is decidedly not healthy, and you know that Backman...because you wrote the first book? This heel turn seems unjustified and like trying to walk back all the points from the first one.
The town of Beartown is like 100 times more insufferable in this one. But the narrator is still trying to make you think, “hey, these people are complicated!” and they totally aren't. They're aggressive, backwater, stupid, homophobic, stuck in their rut and unwilling to change. The town is portrayed so aggressively unlikeable for most of this book, except when they randomly decide not to be (like retiring a number on a jersey for someone and then cheering for 20 YEARS whenever that number is brought out). In Beartown, I understood why people would live in Beartown, even if I personally never would. In Us Against You, I think Beartown is a place where bad people go.
They also talk about this character, Vidar, for the entire book. He fuels SO MUCH of the narrative for the first half, and does not appear until 70% into the book! What! And then he shows up, is in a few scenes, has no personality, does one thing, and then the book ends. Everything about this is perplexing.
That's all I can think of without straight up ripping on the plot beat by beat. I'm genuinely upset I didn't like this one like the other Backman books I've read, but it was a mostly unpleasant experience that I kept wishing was over. I hope he releases the third book soon, so I can not read it, and then he work on something better.
I'm not sure I can find words to describe what I feel about those two books. I've never read anything so touching and so related to today's pains in life. The intertwined stories and feelings felt like the things we all experience daily, but no one never dares to express verbally!
One of the best (if not THE best) books I've ever read. And the ones I would definitely suggest to everyone I know. Already planning to reread them once per year!
I'm sad to say that this was lacking the magic that Beartown had, but I really can't put my finger on a major reason why. I think it showed a realistic view of the continued aftermath of the events in Beartown, and I appreciated the new characters. Sure, I would have liked a deeper dive into a couple of them, but they felt very realistic and were interesting overall. For some reason, I just didn't feel for them most of the time. That's not to say I didn't cry, cause boy did I! Despite feeling a lack of emotional connection most of the time, Backman still managed to suck me in occasionally and broke me. But then there were times when certain relationships didn't make any sense to me. We were told about a powerful love that honestly wasn't shown on the page, so I wasn't able to connect with it at all nor feel the heartbreak that came with it. Most of the stuff I wanted to see happened off the page, was glossed over, or was told about after the fact.
Perhaps, for me, this book suffered slightly from feeling too much like one of those late 90s, early 2000s small town sports movies. Beartown was not about hockey, but Us Against You felt very hockey-centric. As always with Backman's books, the characters and events felt very true to life. I liked following some of my favorites from Beartown regardless of the story. I found Benji's story to be incredibly well done and feel so many things for that boy.
What I wasn't a fan of was the repeated bait-and-switch. It was like those cheap reality tv shows that leave off on a cliffhanger, where it seems like something big is about to go down, but when you return it's literally nothing. It's just smart editing that engages the viewer by promising a big scene then doesn't deliver. Us Against You didn't feel cheap, but I stopped believing that certain things were actually happening. And rightfully so. If Backman had followed through on any of these moments, I think it could have changed a lot of my current overall feelings.
The story felt a little bit less focused than what I expected from Backman. There wasn't necessarily a central plot that you could easily pick out. I'd say that's similar to Backman's other books, but there was even less of a theme tying everything together. I'd call it truly slice-of-life, since real life doesn't follow your standard plot structure.
I honestly can't decide if I'm disappointed enough to rate this 3 stars or if I still liked the writing and characters enough to warrant 4 stars. I'm going to have to think about it for a bit. I liked it more than the other books I've read so far this year but had such high hopes that weren't met at all.
“He's twelve years old, and this summer he learns that people will always choose a simple lie over a complicated truth, because the lie has one unbeatable advantage: the truth always has to stick to what actually happened, whereas the lie just has to be easy to believe.”
An apt sequel. I enjoyed getting back to the inhabitants of Beartown and it was a satisfactory wrap-up to the story.
Backman is so good at taking a mundane setting, adding relatable characters, and pacing his narrative in such a way to drive his beautifully created world right into your heart. I love the progression and internal struggle of the characters from Beartown. This book is a definite must-read.
This was not as good as Beartown. I didn't even get mad at Matt once!
Pretty early on in the book, I had a thought: I don't know how Backman manages to break my heart and irritate the crap out of me in the same sentence. He continued to do that throughout the book; his omniscient narrator kept dragging me out of the story, and his continual fake-outs drove me nuts. He couldn't be trusted to just tell the story. It made me wonder if it had been translated by someone different, but nope. Same author, same translator. I would have made some different editorial decisions, but no one asked my opinion.
Even so, Backman still knows how to make tears spring to my eyes, even if I'm not letting them fall or yelling at my husband because MEN. I'm a different person than I was when I read Beartown. I have a better understanding and appreciation of some of these characters, and a different understanding of grief and community. Maybe that's ruined me for the ways Backman has previously been able to rip my heart out, or maybe I just didn't need a sequel to Beartown and no sequel was ever going to be as good as the original.