I recently finished Us Against You by Fredrick Backman.  Backman has quickly become one of my favorite authors in the last year.  I’ve read 4 of his books now, and I keep flying through them.  I’m not sure if Us Against You is my favorite but I can honestly say this one was finished faster than any of the others.  

I’m going to steal the format of this review from Reading With Jessica who’s book reviews I really enjoy.  

Great Lines

Because sometimes hating one another is so easy that it seems incomprehensible that we ever do anything else

They’ve always known that Beartown isn’t an easy place to grow up in if you’re different, and one of the worst things about becoming an adult is starting to realize that perhaps nowhere is. There are bastards everywhere.

…they’ll just sink twice as fast.  In the end the weight of carrying each other’s broken hearts becomes unbearable

Even the best team can’t be at their best in every game, but they’re good enough to win even when they play badly. A marriage is the same: you don’t measure it by the holiday where you drink wine before lunch and have great sex and your biggest problem is that the sand is too hot and the sun is shining too brightly on the screen when you want to play games on your phone.

Picking up where Beartown left off

Us Against You is the sequel to Beartown.  In fact, if picks up just a short time after Beartown does.

Since the end of Beartown, the Beartown hockey team has split in half after the fall out of what Kevin did to Maya.  Kevin is actually in the story very little, but his presence is felt for the entire novel.

The novel is about what happens to this little town after something like rape happens.  The town has been divided between those that believe what happened and those that don’t.  

Really though, this novel deals with what happens to the girl who was raped afterwards and what happens to her family and friends as well.  

But that’s not really the center of the novel.  Backman is able to craft all these narratives about so many of the people in the town.  Everyone has an engaging tale to tale in this novel and all the characters drive the store forward.

Theme

It’s not often that I focus on something like this for a review, but in this book it is the driving force.  As the title suggests, the major theme of the story is Us Against You.  

At the center of the story is the feud between Hed and Beartown hockey, two rival towns.  Really if goes further than that.  This book really seems to hit home right now for me in a divided America.  The feud between the two towns reminds me of American politics.  There are great people on both sides of the argument, but if you don’t agree you are the enemy.  

Benji’s story exemplifies this greater than anything else.  Benji has hidden part of himself from the rest of the world to fit into a particular mold.  When it is found out that he has been hiding this part of him, the town turns on him.  

Characters

Backman does what he does best in his novels: he creates great characters. 

For the most part, all the characters were already in Beartown, but we get to drive deeper into what makes them tick.  

This is what really drove me to read.  I was so engaged with the characters that I had to know what was coming next.

I’m not sure that all the character really get their time to shine.  While they seemingly have important roles, I don’t feel like their stories have come to a natural conclusion. I hope that we get to read more about Amat or Bobo.  I hope their story isn’t done. 

One character in particular ending didn’t really feel particularly earned in this novel.  Vidar is a character that is introduced early in the novel, but doesn’t make an appearance until the middle.  The ending to his story  didn’t feel as heavy to me as I feel like it should have.  If he had been around since the first novel, I think it would have had more impact, but there’s no way to fault Backman for that.

Hockey

For a second book about a hockey club, there really is very little hockey in it.  

That’s not a bad thing at all.  In fact, but not focusing on the hockey, I think it allowed the characters to really shine more.  You weren’t worried about the score to a hockey game or when the next game would come around.  

Wrap up

I loved this book. Us Against You definitely goes to the top of my list of best books I’ve read.  I would highly recommend everyone to pick this one up, but I would definitely read Beartown first.  

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