Us against you

Us against you is an excellent book with stories well told and characters well constructed. Many things happened, and many people lived in the book, but today I only want to talk about three people and one thing - when should we give up our dreams?

Peter was a famous hockey player and is a general manager of the Beartown hockey club. To him, hockey is everything and is the only thing. He devotes his life to the team, but as you’ve read. The team has been turned to a political chip. What he can do is so little. Facing the breakage of his marriage, plus the dead of a player, he gave up his dream of making the Beartown hockey team famous again.

Kira is a lawyer giving up her dream to take care of the family because peter spent too much time in the rink. At last, she picked up her dream and opened a start-up with her best friend.

Beji is a hockey player who can only find peace on the ice. Playing hockey is the only sanctuary for this troubled body. He gave up the hockey when the other people cannot accept that he is a guy.

We all have dreams, and we’re all struggling to keep up. Life is too hard; never giving up is just too hard. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, you just don’t stand a chance to win because you lack the ability or the luck. You’re just stuck there, slowly losing your grip to everything.

But how do we know if things would turn better? There are plenty of famous examples that they won at the edge of complete bankruptcy. We can’t trust ourselves because we always biased. But we can’t trust other people either, because they are even more biased. How do we know when to give up?

In the novel, Peter will be happy because he chose another life which he may be more useful and will keep the family together. Kira is happy because she can finally do what she wants to do. Benji is lost...

I’m lost, too...

Wow, where to start on this book, the follow up to the simply amazing Beartown? And I do mean follow up - you really should read Beartown first, because this book starts just after the action in that one. I don't think it would make much sense standalone.

In Us Against You, the conflict between the small towns of Hed and Beartown really bursts into action and violence. Characters we came to know and love, like the high schoolers Maya, Ana, Bobo, Benji and Amat, return to action here, as they try to recover from the scandal in the earlier book. As do the adults, like Peter and Kira, Maya's parents (and her younger brother Leo is deeply involved), and Sune, the old hockey coach. New villains show up, like the slimy politician (or is that redundant?) Theo, and the violent Pack.

Basically, it's a story of redemption and grief, sorrow and happiness. This book just filled me with the feels. I often ended my reading sessions literally with tears flowing down my cheeks, whether sad tears, proud tears or happy tears. It just kept hitting me in the feels. If you read the quotes from the book, you'll get an idea of how powerful his words are, hitting especially hard if you are married, a parent, a teammate or just different. It is less about hockey than the first book, more about trying to keep the team together and the people of Beartown.

I also really loved how he never told us the score of the final, climatic game, just that people talked about it for years. I think it underscored his idea that sports are temporary yet indelible. I don't see how they win without their best players again, much like the first game of the season.

Oh, and speaking of not having their best players, I don't think I understand why Benji didn't make the game. I'm not sure Fredrick really explained that away enough. He just stood up his teammates, after all they had been through and did for him?


My one negative, which makes this a 4.5 star book rather than the 5 star book that Beartown was, is that the story feels a little more forced and scattered. I wasn't real happy with the political angle - just seemed to be too easy. But his handling of all the rest of the relationships was remarkably deft, from Maya and Ana's friendship, to the way Amat boyhood friends stood up for him and helped him. And his descriptions of Peter and Kira's marriage slowly shattering was just too much for me.

But I will say Backman completely missed on the relationship between the teacher and Benji. I know Benji is 18 and all, but he played it more for the tragedy of a homosexual relationship, while totally downplaying the abhorrent idea of a teacher messing around with a student. Totally wrong, no matter who the two people are.


All in all, a fantastic follow up to one of my favorite books for 2017. No explosive moments (well, a few, but not the big on of the first book), so I'm not sure there will be a followup (although he did hint at one relationship that might deserve another book!). But still, what a great read.