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I think this book is a great book to read because it brings up issues that we don't often talk about. Rape is this horrible thing and is viewed so badly that we often don't bring it up in conversations because the way it is viewed. I think this books brings recognition to the topic and all of the things it can cause outside of the event itself. It is also a good read to see the inside politics of a sports league and how events like this can make or break them.

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Though our town is a bit bigger than Beartown, things stil spread quickly. One stupid mistake will leave you with a reputation that is unchangeable. I often think things through before I am going to do it because I don't want a small stupid decision to cost be for the rest of my life. Nowadays it can weirdly be related to the virus. If people would just stay inside their house and keep to themselves it wouldn't have spread as much as it did, just like the rumors in the book.

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In a small town, things spread like the coronavirus. If one thing happens at noon, everyone knows it by night. Through the character of Maya we see that you should speak up about something before it's too late and through the character of Amat we see that you should never give up on your goals. In relevance to the theme, in a town like Beartown, each action has two sides. One side being you agree with it and the other being you don't. There is never an in between in small towns like this. People are going to think the right option is the option that they benefit best from. Just like people whose lives are based off of the hockey teams success are going to think Maya was lying for attention and such and people who love and care for Maya are going to believe in her.

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Things that happen in a small town, never only stay in a small town.

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Along with pacing, the duration of actual events are sometimes misinterpreted as longer than they actually are. This is because of the different characters sides that come along with it. We often see multiple characters thoughts about an event while it is going on which throws off the time frame. This is because there are multiple pages in between the start of the event and the end of it

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Bears - A bear market is when the prices are declining heavily and steadily. But in the book it also states that you "have the bear in you" which means you have to fight no matter what. Both of these sides of the meaning bear are very symbolic because it shows that to live in Beartown you have to keep fighting to define the odds of a bad economy to stay alive.
New hockey arena - No matter what kind of lifestyle you may live in Beartown, your life is always tied down to hockey. It is the towns pride and joy and they want to prove to the rest of the country that they deserve the new hockey arena. The new hockey arena is very symbolic becuase the people of Beartown believe that their life would instantly be better if they can get it in their town.

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The way the chapters are set up can make a single event seem way longer than it really is. Each event switches back and forth between the different characters for their different views, but because of this it prolongs the event. For example, when Kevin is sexually assaulting Maya, we first see Maya's point of view and what she is thinking. We then see her best friend, Ana looking for her and getting frustrated and walking out to Amat who then runs upstairs to find her. He also gets into an argument with the boys who are protecting upstairs which also prolongs the overall scene.

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Throughout Beartown we hear what the characters are thinking and see their actions through a narrator but we see their interaction with different characters through direct dialogue. "The only thing the sport gives us are moments. But what the hell is life, Peter, apart from moments?" Ramona is a bar owner and bartender and many people go to her just to talk, just as Peter does before the big semifinal game.

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Beartown is written in a series of events that are spaced out like a timeline. Each event that happens flows into the next day. There are flashbacks every so often, but even those still happen chronologically. "Sune emerges from his office to get some coffee, and on the way back he sees Peter sitting on his own in the stand. Sune knows that the GM is a grown man now, but it's hard for an old coach to stop thinking of his boys as boys." Sune is in the present and is going through the motions but is still reflecting on the past.

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Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

"Your dad would have been so proud if he could have seen you play."
"Dad probably didn't even know what hockey was."

I personally love The Beatles, and this is one of my favorite songs by them. Amat feels generally really lonely because it is just his mom and him and now that he is on the Junior Team, his best friend Zach really doesn't talk to him anymore. Overall Amat is just very lonely, especially without his dad.

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Photosynthesis - Saba (clean)

"A great deal is expected of anyone who's been given a lot"

Amat has been handed many different obstacles in his life, and deals with one every time he's on the ice because of just how much smaller he is then all fo the other boys. He doesn't let that get in his way though. This songs, to me, just means that he went through everything, and still made it out successful.

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Crumble - Jeremiah Daly

"Number eight-one--the number he chose because his mother was born that year--stands alone by the boards and looks at the scoreboard. It is simultaneously the best and worst moment he has experienced in this rink."

This song is pretty sad, and almost always makes me sad while listening to it, but overall, Amat contributed to one of the biggest, if not biggest, goals of his life and everyone just acts like it was all Kevin. Everyone cheers for Kevin, while he is forgotten on the side.

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Tired of Being Alone - Al Green

"By the time he gets to his knees every Beartown player is following Kevin toward the bench, everyone in the stads is watching number nine. Even Maya"

Amat has been absolutely in love with Maya forever, and just wants to be able to go out with her. Even through the mist of hockey he still feels alone because Maya likes Kevin, and he knows he stands no chance against the star hockey player.

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Let It Show - Big Krit (clean)

Amat is terrified, even though he hasn't played for a second. When he followed Kevin and the rest of the team out onto the ice, when the crowd stood up and the roar made his ear pop, he headed straight for the bench absolutely convinced he was about to throw up.

Amat is extremely nervous because this is his first junior game of his entire life, and it is the semi-finals. He just need to go out there and let it show, and show that he deserves to be out there.

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Self-Made - Bryson Tiller (clean of course)

"He looks at Lyt and Bobo, and Lars and David, an Benji and Kevin, and thinks that he's going to show them he can play. Even if it kills him."

Amat is a character who is always going to be the underdog, he is smaller than most boys and doesn't have anything nice like they do. He needs to prove himself to the boys not because he needs to show how good he is but to prove to himself how good he is.

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Breakout - Foo Fighters

"Look at this mess! Well? Is this how it's supposed to look? Do you think your mother work here or something? Guys, you need to remember that Amat's mother work's here."

Amat is the "new kid" on the team and it makes him an easy target, especially because he is younger than all of the boys as well. Just like Dave Grohl, he wants to breakout of the situation and not look like the son of the cleaning lady, instead he wants his hockey career to breakout and have his mom be the mom of a hockey star.

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Revenge - Joyner Lucas

"You might be playing with bears. But that doesn't mean you have to forget that you're a lion"

Amat is only 15, going to play with a team full of 17 year olds and is filled with rage and anger when they make fun of him, especially when they make fun of his mom for having to clean up. He is looking for revenge to prove himself to the team that he belongs there like Joyner Lucas is looking for revenge to everyone who ever doubted him.

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Biological Information about Fredrik Backman

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Biological Information about Fredrik Backman

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Fredrik Backman was born on June 2, 1981 and is currently 38 years old. He is a Swedish author, blogger and columnist. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife, Neda Shafti Backman, and two children. He grew up in Helsingborg, writing for the  Helsingborgs Dagblad and Moore Magazine. In 2012 he realised his first novel, A Man Named Ove, which then became a movie in December of 2015.

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Fredrik Backman (born 2 June 1981) is a Swedish columnist, blogger and writer. He is the author of A Man Called Ove (2012), My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (2013), Britt-Marie Was Here (2014), (2017), and Us Against You (2018). They were number one bestsellers in his native Sweden. They have been published around the world in more than twenty-five languages.

Backman grew up in Helsingborg. He has been writing for Helsingborgs Dagblad and Moore Magazine. He debuted as a novelist in 2012 with A Man Called Ove. It was adapted as a film with the same title and it premiered on December 25, 2015. The rights to his book Beartown have been bought by a Swedish production company named Filmlance and will be adapted for TV.

Backman is married to Neda Shafti Backman, and they have two children.

Saker min son behöver veta om världen (2012; English translation Things My Son Needs to Know About the World, 2019)

Min mormor hälsar och säger förlåt (2013; English translation My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, 2015)

Britt-Marie var här (2014; English translation Britt-Marie Was Here, released in May 2016)

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer: A Novella (November 2016)

The Deal of a Lifetime: A Novella (October 2017)

Folk med ångest (2019; English Translation Anxious People, September 2020)

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Fredrik Backman (born 2 June 1981) is a Swedish columnist, blogger and writer. He is the author of A Man Called Ove (2012), My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (2013), Britt-Marie Was Here (2014), (2017), and Us Against You (2018). They were number one bestsellers in his native Sweden.

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Beartown is a novel based on a small town and focuses on a junior league hockey team that the town depends on for their economy. It examines themes of parental control, the cost of keeping secrets, loyalty, family, and regret. The books talks about rape and the many things that come along with a rape accusation. The book focuses on the star hockey player who rapes a girl and case gets dropped because there "wasn't enough information". The girl, however, decides to take matters into her own hands and plans on killing him. Fredrik Backman was very into sports at a young age but surprisingly didn't play hockey.

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SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides for challenging works of literature. This 50-page guide for "Beartown" by Fredrik Backman includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis covering 50 chapters, as well as several more in-depth sections of expert-written literary analysis. Featured content includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay topics, and key themes like Secrets and Shame and Grief. Plot Summary
Beartown is a 2017 novel by Fredrik Backman. It is set in the eponymous town and focuses on the local junior hockey team. Set against the backdrop of a depressed town that is obsessed with the sport, it examines themes of parental control, the cost of keeping secrets, loyalty, family, and regret.

The novel unfolds over fifty chapters and is told in brief scenes, with an omniscient narrator occasionally interjecting philosophical maxims and sketching out the backgrounds of many of the characters. A chapter may switch between the third-person viewpoints of a dozen characters, with very few scenes lasting more than two pages.

When the novel opens, the narrator reveals that it is the story of how a teenager put a gun to another teenager's head and pulled the trigger.

Kevin Erdahl is the star of the junior hockey team. His parents have groomed him obsessively to be a star since childhood, and the town views him as a commodity. Beartown is financially depressed and its citizens live for hockey: the team's successes and failures are tied to the town's fortune. If it cannot attract sponsors for the team, there is no money for the economy. The early chapters delineate Kevin's character and his relationship to his coaches, his teammates, and his parents. They also introduce Peter Andersson, the General Manager, his 15-year old daughter Maya, his wife Kira, and several other characters who will play pivotal roles.

The team manages to win the semifinal games, largely due to the last-minute promotion of a small, poor boy named Amat. Amat had been playing on a younger team until a coach saw how fast he was on the ice. The team needed speed more than anything.

At a victory party after the semifinal, Kevin rapes Maya when she will not have sex with him. Amat has been in love with Maya for years and witnesses the end of the rape. He will eventually testify to the police and become alienated from the team after Kevin is arrested. The rape forces a new set of alliances to be drawn. Kevin's best friend, Benji, no longer supports him, which hurts Kevin more than anything.

The final game happens while Kevin is under investigation, and the team loses without him, even though they play the best they ever have. Maya is blamed for their loss and she and her father, Peter, become pariahs. Then the rumor begins that Peter is responsible for encouraging Maya to lie, just so the team will lose and he can use that for some vague political advantage. The team's sponsors withdraw their financial backing and begin to support Hed Hockey Club, the team in the nearest town. The best players will follow David, their coach, to Hed, leaving Beartown without a team.

Kevin's investigation ends quickly because the police say there is not enough evidence. Maya decides that she will kill Kevin so that she can put the rape behind her. She confronts him with a shotgun as he runs on a jogging track one night, but chooses to spare his life.

As the novel ends, the narrator reveals that Maya has found peace ten years later and is now a famous musician. Many of the Beartown players chose to remain in Beartown and play, since their team was saved by a couple of board members and sponsors who refused to leave.

Maya sees Kevin in a parking lot ten years later, and chooses not to tell the woman he is with (his wife) what happened. She spares him again, although Kevin breaks down and tells his wife everything in the car.

Beartown is a unique coming of age story in that it shows the development of far more youths than many other novels. It is highly recommended for those who are trying to heal from past trauma, advocates for the victims of rape, and anyone who enjoys a vivid novel about small town life.

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Beartown Summary & Study Guide | SuperSummary

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SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides for challenging works of literature. This 50-page guide for "Beartown" by Fredrik Backman includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis covering 50 chapters, as well as several more in-depth sections of expert-written literary analysis.

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Setting - Beartown, a small forest town in northern Sweden.
https://www.startribune.com/review-beartown-by-fredrik-backman/427310313/
Time period - 2016 Sweden
Main Characters - Maya Andersson,  Kevin Erdahl, Peter Andersson, Kira Andersson, Amat, David, Sune, Fatima, Mr. Erdahl, Mrs. Erdahl, Ana, Bobo, William Lyt, Zacharias, Ramona, Tails, Club President, Leo Andersson, The Pack, Robbie Holts, and The bass player.
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/beartown/characters
Situation -  A star junior hockey player, Kevin, raped a girl, Maya. The book talks about the consequences both characters face.

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I choose this book because I really like sports, I always liked hockey but never really go into it all that much so I am excited to learn more about the sport and the background politics going into it. I picked this book too because I feel as if I could relate to this book more than the others because the main characters are around my age. Overall I am very excited to read this book and think I am going to enjoy it alot. At this point I'm not sure what to predict! I think maybe that Maya will go to kill Kevin but will back out because the entire community will hate her.

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The setting is a small forest town in Sweden called Beartown. It is cold and snowing there almost all the time. The town has two important towns. One being the Hollows and the other being the Heights. If you live in the Hollows, you are typically poor and forgotten about, where if you live in the Heights, you are usually a rich man who helps run the town. This is symbolic because the farther away you live from the the Hollows, the higher you are in the social hierarchy. The heavy snow and forest trees create a mood of feeling trapped and stuck. I definitely would not want to visit there, let alone live there. I am perfectly happy with the beach and don't think I could survive in below zero weather.

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The narrator is from the point-of-view of a third person omniscient narrator. We still see dialogue, but there is still a narrator explaining the characters and explaining their feelings. Overall, I like having a omniscient narrator instead of first person because it explains the characters thoroughly and we get a better understanding on why they are making the actions that they are. We also get a better outlook on the town itself and the hockey league because the narrator is explaining what's going on without the characters fully knowing what is going on.

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Kira Andersson is Maya and Leo's mother and is married to Peter. Kira is one of my favorite characters so far because I feel like I relate to her in a certain way. She is a very successful lawyer who works in a bigger city. Even though she is a very successful attorney, she is filled with guilt because she is away from her children so much and feels like she is a fake parent. She had an older son who passed away and since he died she has been obsessed with protecting her kids, Maya and Leo. She doesn't really like Beartown because of how much they focus on hockey and she doesn't really like the people either. Even though she's older than me I would still probably be her friend because she seems like someone I could relate too.

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"When your desire to win is stronger than your fear of losing, you have a chance, no one wins when they're frightened." During basketball, when we would lose, I would be furious. I'd go home crying after every game, not because I was sad, but because of how much I hated to lose. When anyone asked why I would just say, "I hate to lose more than I like to win." So I feel very connected to this quote because it is a moral I hold true to myself win I play. Now it holds even more weight because once I recover and am done with physical therapy, I can't be scared to go back out and play hard. At times I get scared because I don't want to tear my ACL again, but if I'm ever scared, I will never reach my full potential.