Us Against You by Fredrik Backman ~ Book Review

Us Against You continues the story of the Beartown hockey  team after the tragic events that occurred to split the team and the town in two.  As Peter, the general manager, struggles to rebuild a team who's major players have all left to play for the neighboring town's team instead,  forces are working against him.  That is until a slick politician comes along with some investors who want to rebuild what the town has lost.  But there is a price to pay.  And is Peter willing to sacrifice all to stay in Beartown and keep his job?  Peter will have to find new players not only willing to play but good enough to stand up to the former players of Beartown team now playing for the rival Hed team.  As the big game approaches, the two teams and towns stir up the rivalry with not only verbal assaults but pranks that start to ramp up and take dangerous turns and what started as rivalry turns to hatred.  When a major player's deepest secret is exposed, it's like another bomb has gone off in the midst of the team.  By the time the game is played someone will be dead, and residents and players of both towns will have to look deep to what they have allowed hockey to become.

Once again Fredrik Backman brings a story that goes way beyond the surface.  He has a great talent at going into hearts and attitudes and human nature and exposing both the ugly and the beautiful.  He writes characters that have both good and bad, and makes them relateable.  In this sequel he again takes something that should be simple and enjoyable, a sport, and totally exposes underlying and complex attitudes and feelings that we as a society have allowed into the role that sports and competition in general plays in our lives and brings it to the surface through the characters.  It is an emotional ride through story telling going way beyond the sport that he uses as a base for everything else. 

For the most part I enjoyed it, it made me think, it took my emotions all over the board and drew me in to the characters.  This author has amazing character development even though the book does deal with lots of different characters.  The story has moved along from the last book and some story-lines wrapped up and new ones were introduced through new characters and because there is a book 3 to this whole thing a few story-lines were kinda left with the reader wondering what could happened to certain characters.  There is some delving into political and moral issues worked into this story.   Backman's style is a bit different and his way of using leading sentences to hold the reader captive and wondering is for the most part ingenious but I have to admit that toward the end of the book I felt he was way over using it.  The story is shocking in it's progression of violence both in the portrayal and in the sense that it totally shows how we don't believe how we as individuals could ever play a part in that or get to that point yet here we are as a society.   I was glad that the proliferation of f-bombs and swearing that I found hard in the first book were very much toned down in this one.  If you read and enjoyed Beartown, which is a must read to be able to understand these storylines,  this will take you farther into the exploration of human nature through a town totally invested in it's hockey team. 

I gave it a 8/10