Beartown is a small, rural Swedish town full of people living vastly different lives: poor, wealthy, immigrants, lawyers, factory workers, high schoolers. The one thing that brings them all together is hockey. The high school team has the chance to win the championships, and if that happens, great things will come to Beartown – hockey training facilities, favorable media attention, bigger roads, more businesses that will bring better jobs and more money to town. But when the star player makes a huge mistake, the aftermath divides the town in two. Backman introduces the reader to dozens of people in this small town, bringing us into their points of view and helping us understand why each person in this town thinks, acts, and reacts the way they do to the events of the novel. He pulls the reader’s emotions up with the highs, down with the lows, and tugs on the heartstrings just the right amount. I was so impressed with how realistic every character felt – even if I didn’t agree with everyone, I understood why each of them thought and felt the way they did about the events that took place in this book. This is a novel I will be thinking about for a long time!