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Review: Us Against You (Beartown #2) by Fredrik Backman

Book 17 of 2022

Start Reading Time: 7 November 2022

Finish reading Time: 14 November 2022

Page Count: 448 Pages

TRIGGER WARNINGS: HOMOPHOBIA, RAPE, SUICIDE, DEPRESSION, BULLYING, SEXISM, MISOGYNY

This is the spoiler-free part of the review. I will put up a spoiler alert before going into the review that contains spoilers.

The book is so hard to read... because of the tears. It's hard to read through the tears. I counted every time I cried and it turns out that I cried a total of 14 times this time.

Fredrik Backman was crazy for writing and releasing this book. It's like he just wants his readers to suffer. But... I kinda love it??? If you've been following me and my book reviews, you'll know that some of my favorite books are the ones that destroyed me mentally, and this book series is one of my all time favorites, so it's very fitting that this book made me cry even more than the first book.

Can you believe I survived a little over one whole year without knowing the conclusion to this story, with all of these people in this small town that I have come to love? Because I can't. How did I do it? If it wasn't for awesome fantasy books to distract me maybe I would've gone crazy. But not for long now, as I have officially started reading The Winners now, while making this review. My long and seemingly endless wait has finally come to an end, and I have to brace myself for the ending of this book series. But, for now, let's talk about this book.

When I first read this book, here's the summary of my thoughts and feelings back then:

This book is NOT kind to all of my fave characters but especially Ana, Peter, Leo and Benji. Pretty much everyone got screwed over here, except for Richard Theo, and maybe Alicia. The people of Beartown are really going through it in this book. I couldn't forgive Ana for what she did to Benji.

So fucking tired and fed up with Richard Theo's politics, though I was thankful that he helped rescue Beartown Hockey Club from being closed down.

Not enough hockey games in this book, which was a let down, it made me miss the hockey games in Book 1.

Not enough Alicia, Amat and Bobo. Give these awesome characters their own books.

I have aged a year since the last time I read this book, and I'd like to think that I'm a bit wiser than I was then, and yes I have changed my mind about some of the things mentioned above, which I will explain in the spoilery part of this review. It's so fascinating to see how much you have changed and grown over the years based on your reviews of your favorite books.

Overall, I think this book is so much more brutal and dark than the first book, with so much less hockey games, as it's more about the politics and the violence around the Beartown Hockey Club, but the characters are still as lovable as ever, and the small hockey town itself still has its own charms. It will make you suffer though, if you are as easily attached to a character as I am, as there are a few characters that will die in this book, although it's probably not who you think it is, despite Backman's many misdirection and scary foreshadowing. And I do have more criticisms of this book than I did when I first read it, but I'm still giving the book a 5 stars rating because the good still outweighs the bad in the end, and I still love this book series so much.

Now, here's the brief book summary: The book started out really gloomily and I can feel the anxiety and uncertainty that the townspeople of Beartown feel now that the best players and the coach of the Junior Team of Beartown Ice Hockey have changed clubs to Hed's club. You have to understand, this Junior team was gonna be their A-Team that was supposed to be their champions, their pride and joy, that will bring home victories and that will make their whole town known and get the country's attention and will bring tourists and infrastructure and more jobs to the small town. But then their star player raped the club's GM's daughter, and the team lost the game.

At the start of the book, Kevin was leaving the town to live somewhere and start anew. His parents are getting divorced and they're all leaving Beartown in two separate cars: Kevin with his mom going one direction, and his dad going the opposite direction. After Maya pointed a loaded gun at Kevin and threatened his life, Kevin was never the same man he was before. Kevin's parents are separating and he's going to live abroad with his Mom, who wishes to help her son to get better mentally, and become a better person, while not knowing if she will ever be able to forgive him for what he did to Maya. We don't hear anything more about Kevin and his family in the rest of the book, and the rest of the town acted like Kevin had always been a weirdo, they're fully condemning him and acted like they never knew or liked him at all, because that makes things easier for them.

Now, the coach of the Junior team and almost all of the best players have left Beartown's Ice Hockey Club except for Amat, Benji and Bobo, the fate of the club is not looking good at all. The sponsors are following the players and moving their sponsorship to Hed's Ice Hockey Club, and the club's going bankrupt, and it seems that Beartown Hockey Club will be no more. Except NOT.

What happened, you ask? Richard fucking Theo, that's what happened.

Say hello to one of the most infuriating characters of this book series. He is so infuriating, he makes Maggan Lyt look like a saint in comparison, and she annoyed the fuck out of me in book 1. His name is Richard Theo, and he's a controversial politician, but personally, I like to call him Satan. His whole politics is provocation through manipulation, because when all of the people go one way, he goes the other way and that's how he wins the election. The bastard. And oh man, did he work hard in manipulating multiple people, constantly pulling the strings on all of these people and controlling their actions, making rumors and swaying the public's opinion, all to his own advantage: so he'll win the next election. You just can't help but hate the man.

There is one undeniably good thing that he did, which is that he rescued Beartown Hockey Club from closing down. Therefore, giving Benji, Amat and Bobo a team to fight for and play Hockey with. That is the ONLY good thing this Richard Theo has even done for Beartown and its people.

However, Theo's good deed does not come free. Oh, of course not: it comes with a price, and it's an expensive one. One that would cause a turmoil and war between Beartown and Hed, turning the people of each town against the other town's. It became personal, much more than just about hockey, although hockey has always been so much more than just a sport or a hobby. Now it's about the townspeople's livelihood, their jobs, and their healthcare. Now it's personal. Now, it's a full on war.

Some people are gonna die. Some people will leave Beartown. Some people will come out victorious and some people will be broken. It's me, hi, I'm the "some people" that are broken because of this book, it's me. Nothing will be the same after the events that happened in this book.

🚨SPOILER ALERT🚨

From this point forward in the review, I will mention spoilers, plot twist and the ending. So, if you don’t wish to be spoiled, you can skip the rest of the review and come back to this review once you’ve finished reading this book.

A few things about the book I need to mention...

RICHARD FREAKING THEO. The devil works hard, but Richard Theo works harder. That's why I call him Satan. What he's doing to Beartown Hockey Club is like what those psychics do when they call the families with missing family members, telling them that they could help them find their missing loved one, but at a price, and then just telling them bullshit because their supposed "supernatural power" is so obviously fake. They're manipulating people who are desperate, for their own gain. It's fucking low, lower than the average criminals. To give the desperate people false hopes, when they were actually being manipulated for those awful politicians/psychic's own gains. He makes me gag, honestly. One thing I know for sure is when Richard Theo or people like him offers you something and tell you that he wants to be your friend, you need to run to the other direction as fast as you can, and alert the authorities, and maybe perform an exorcism just in case. Don't make a deal with the devil Satan or you'll get burned.

ELISABETH ZACKELL. I want to like her, I really do. But I just can't like her, especially not after that paintball gun scene. I'll mention it in my criticism of this book.

I forgot how Backman intentionally did not let us know about the gender of Zackell in the beginning, that i have to admit that the first time reading it, I honestly thought Zackell was a man, and I was so pleasantly surprised when it was revealed that Zackell is actually a woman. Made you think about your own gender biases that you unknowingly still have.

I love that Zackell represents the women athletes that are often overlooked or oppressed because of the blatant misogyny in sports. But, I think it's because she values victories over nurturing good human beings with good morals, like David, I can't bring myself to like her, like I just can't like David. I think she's hilarious and quirky, and she's obviously overqualified for the job as she was a really successful hockey player, but we need more than that to be a good hockey coach that will make Beartown Hockey Club a better club than it used to be.

WILLIAM LYT. William, Benji, Bobo, Amat and other players need to have a group therapy session, (not unlike that scene in Mean Girls where Tina Fey gather all the girls and ask them to raise their hands if they feel victimized by Regina George lol) since these boys have been victimized by Kevin so much, I feel like they need therapy to get over it. William and Benji especially.

Man, do I hate him in the beginning of this book. I have so much rage for him, especially when he was beating down Leo. It was so dirty too, he trapped Leo there. Thank God for Jeannette, for saving Leo that day. When she kicked him down, I kid you not, I audibly said "YESSS!!" and fist-pumped. I know, it's wrong and child abuse or whatever, but I could NOT care less, he was beating down someone so physically weaker than him, he trapped him there and he knew what his sister went through, regardless he believes her or not. William is guilty in my book. So I justify Jeannette's kick. I just hope she did it harder to injure him enough to never play hockey ever again. I freaking hate him.

But then! Towards the end, not only Backman made me feel sorry for William, he made me feel sorry for Maggan Lyt too. If only you knew how much I hate that woman in book 1, I made several notations just about how much I hate her. But then this happened...

"Today, more than usual, William watches his parents as they eat and chat. He’s well aware of what people in this town say about his family, that his dad is “so cheap he cries when he takes a shit” and that his mother is a “crazy hockey mom.” That might be true, but there are other things that can be said about them, too. They’ve never had anything handed to them on a plate, they’ve had to fight for everything, and they want to give their children all the things they themselves never had: power over their own lives without having to struggle every day. Maybe they go too far sometimes, but William is only too willing to forgive them. This world isn’t built for kind people. Kind people get exploited and crushed. William just has to look around Beartown to see that. After dinner he watches a cartoon in his sister’s room. When she was born, the doctors said there was something wrong with her. There wasn’t, she’s just special. People keep wanting to describe her using the name of her condition, but William refuses. She is who she is. The kindest person he knows. ... She always worries about her children; whenever William isn’t home she channels her anxieties into making food. “Say what you like about Maggan Lyt, but she’s a good cook!” people say. The fact that they feel the need to preface the sentence with “Say what you like” doesn’t bother her. She knows who she is. She fights for everything she’s got. She ends up making a pasta salad, then some potato salad. “No one can make so many salads out of things that aren’t supposed to be salads as you, Mom—you can make any vegetable unhealthy!” William usually says with a grin. She stays awake until he gets home, worrying the whole time."

Backman, please, I just want to hate this family in peace. Don't make me feel for them. I really want to hate them, but I just can't, not after reading that. Maggan reminds me of my own mom, and I guess that's just how moms are, passionate, a little crazy, but ultimately they love their children and are just trying to take care of their families the best way they can.

Also, how can I go on hating William after I read this...

"William’s smile is heavy with missed opportunities and lost years. “When other people our age talk about their childhoods, they always seem to remember the sun shining the whole time. All I remember is constantly hoping for rain.”"

Oh, and Backman even made me feel sorry for Kevin in the beginning of the book. Whether I'm losing my mind or Backman's writing is just that good.

I guess the only character I can hate in peace now is Richard Theo.

THE PACK. Listen, I hate violence as much as any pacifist would, but I love Teemu, Vidar, Woody and Spider. I mean, yes they're kinda psycho, but they're OUR psycho, so we'll love and protect them no matter what. I imagine Teemu and Spider and Woody to be like Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers from Fargo the TV Show, they're so scary and intimidating, but also so calm and subtle.

I lowkey ship Adri (Benji's oldest sister) with Teemu. I feel like they have a lot of chemistry and if Backman makes this canon, I would be over the moon.

LEO. My man is really going through it in this book. In Book 1, it was his parents that were hit so hard with what happened to Maya, and in this book it's Leo's turn, and oh God is it heartbreaking. I think that we often think of family systems along vertical lines, the Mom and Dad influencing their children, but there is actually a lot of horizontal influence too, which is the influence from older siblings to the younger siblings. It's like a sub-family system, consisting of the children and that's totally cut off from the adults of the family. Siblings are oftentimes, our first ever friends, and the relation can even evolve to be best friends, or it can go the other way and they become your arch enemy, but it is undeniably one of the most fundamental relations a man could have. Maya and Leo are so close, and what Maya experienced undoubtedly also impacted Leo greatly, and that's why since the first book I expected to get more Leo, which we didn't get, but in this book we get so much of him and it was heartbreaking to read about him having to deal with this alone and turn to self harm and violence instead.

I think what's happening with Leo in this book is him wanting to get some sense of control back. He felt helpless regarding what happened to Maya, he doesn't know how he should react or help his sister. He felt rage and the need to avenge his sister and family against the rapist and everyone else who made his sister and his family's life hell. He was also in his teenage years, and still finding out what it means to be a man, and so he struggled with masculinity. While he felt like he could not look up to his father because of his non-violent nature, which is caused by the trauma he got from being abused by his own violent father, so Leo felt the need to look elsewhere for a role model. He wanted to be like Benji and Teemu because he saw that these men have power, and people respected as well as feared them, and he wanted that too. I think that if Maya was never raped, Leo would never want to be like Benji or Teemu, maybe he would find his father to be the perfect role model for him, and not having to struggle so much with masculinity, since being non-violent like how his father is doesn't mean being non-masculine, but it's just a different type of masculinity. In another dimension maybe Leo would turn out to be just like his father and be content with it.

That's why I love Benji so much in this scene

"Benji’s chin drops, and a knot in his chest tightens. He can see that Leo is awestruck by his ability to hurt other people. Benji doesn’t know who he hates most for that.

“You haven’t got it in you, Leo,” he says quietly.

The boy snaps. Not just his voice, his whole being. “Kevin raped my sister! What sort of man am I if I don’t—”

Benji hugs the boy and whispers in his ear, “I’ve got sisters, too, and if anyone did to one of them what Kevin did to Maya, I’d be full of hate, too.”

Leo splutters in despair, “If Kevin raped one of your sisters, you’d have killed him!”

Benji knows he’s right. So he tells the truth: “So don’t end up like me, then. Because once you do, it’s too late to change.”"

I love that Benji told him to not be like him, though it's soul crushing to read that because it means that he hates himself for being the way he is. But Benji's right, Leo should not be like him because he is so much more than the things that happen to him, his family or his sister. He should be his own true self, even if he doesn't know who that is yet.

What I don't like is we don't know in the end if he listens to Benji's advice and stops trying to be like him, and stops harming himself, because to me his ending is too ambiguous. Hopefully we'll find out that he'll be alright in The Winners.

PETER. My poor man, I don't think that he had anything good going for him in this book. Sure, he got his club back, and the new A-team won many games this season, but the price was way too high. His life was being threatened, his marriage was falling apart, he was losing his son to violence and his daughter to her PTSD and then her music school, and in the end he even let go of his club. I have to give credit to him, because if it wasn't for him fighting for the club, Amat, Benji, Bobo and Alicia wouldn't have a club and a team to play hockey for. But what does he get in return? Almost nothing. I was so happy and hopeful when in the end he came to his wife asking for a job, because he wants to be a better husband and mend his marriage and his family. I have really high hopes for him in The Winners. He's also someone who deserves a happy ending.

The best things about this book for me are...

SUNE!!! Sune's criminally underrated OMG, he's the best thing Beartown ever had, the man is a treasure. I can't believe that even me, myself, have taken him for granted before this. This time reading the book somehow just made me really see his brilliance, and I just realized now that Sune gives off strong Uncle Iroh's vibe, as they both have the tendency of spitting wise advice, both are adorable, and I love them so freaking much. Now, I'm anxious that he'll be passing away in The Winners, as he was in a poor health condition in this book. I hope not, but then again, you never know with Backman.

BENJAMIN OVICH. Backman gave me, not just one, not just two, but three heart attacks in this book, when he was making me think that Benji's going to take his own life in the forest or getting terribly injured. First when Benji went into the forest after leaving gifts for his niece and nephew, but then turned out he was just getting high, and then again when I thought Benji's legs were gonna be broken so he couldn't play hockey anymore, which didn't happen, and then again with this chapter title: Ch. 32 - Then He Takes the Shotgun and Goes Out into the Forest, AND WHEN BENJI WENT INTO THE FOREST WITH A GUN after he was outed by Ana. DOESN'T BACKMAN KNOW THAT SOME OF US HAVE ANXIETYYYYY???!!!! If I had a heart problem, I would've died already.

But my heart was broken multiple times in this book for Benji. Oh my sweet sweet child, what do we do with you? I want nothing but happiness for him, is that too much to ask?? This man is the kindest and the wildest all at once, he's a hurricane of feelings, and you just can't help but to love him with all of your heart and soul.

He was scared because he felt responsible for his team, and he felt a responsibility to his family to be better than his father, but cursed with the same wild heart as him. He felt responsibility to the pack and everyone who roots for him on the ice to be this straight strong macho guy, when he was actually gay and more sensitive than anyone. I hate that he hates himself and that he thinks it's too late for him to change, and that he is already doomed to end up like his father. I want so desperately for him to see how amazing and precious he is, that there is nothing wrong with him, that he should be true to himself and embrace it, and not care about what others think of him, and to find happiness anywhere he wants to but how do you save someone from themselves? I think that's why so many people root for him, because I think we all know or even have been someone like him, someone who we know deserves to be happy, but the world is unfair and we can't help them.

Benji will forever be one of my favorite characters of all time because of his wild heart and sad eyes. He's truly one of the best characters in this book series, he stood by Maya when most of the people and the club took Kevin's side, he fought and played his heart out during that semi-final game without Kevin, he saved Leo and took him away from the fight when The Pack were fighting the men from Hed, he talked to Leo and told him to not be like him before it's too late to change, he forgave Ana even though she outed him and made his life hell, he bravely faced the town's scrutiny of his sexual orientation and become the inspiration to many to also come out to their family and friends, and he was the best team captain to his hockey team. When he left Beartown at the end of the book, it gave me hope that maybe one day somewhere in the world he can be happy and free, if he feels that he can't be that in Beartown.

My ultimate ship in this book series is Benji with happiness. That's the only ship that matters.

MAYA & HER SONG LYRICS. My little fighter, my survivor queen. The majority of most beautiful things are often born from hardship, struggles and sometimes, even pain, and what Maya does with her music, which is making it into her coping mechanism, since she has a lot of PTSD from the rape, is truly remarkable. I keep getting stuck at the page anytime there's her song lyrics because they are just that beautiful and poignant, I keep reading them over and over again.

When Maya and Ana stopped being friends after Maya found out that it was Ana who took and uploaded the picture of Benji kissing that teacher, my heart broke. But I also understand why Maya did it, I was also furious with Ana, and like I said in my Babel review, friends break up all the time, so I'm glad that Maya and Ana's friendship was depicted realistically in this book. I'm so happy when they finally made up and became friends again. These two are soulmates and I love them and their friendship so freaking much.

I'm so beyond proud of Maya for being so strong and for going after what she wants, which is going to the music school she got into. I know she will still fight her demons some nights, but I also hope that she'll find her own happiness and that she'll have her happy ending in The Winners.

AMAT. WHERE IS HIS BOOK??!!! We get so little of him in this book, I feel so robbed. There are so many times I was frustrated because the hockey game was supposed to be happening, and Amat and Bobo were playing, but we didn't get to know how the game went or how these boys were playing in the game. I have been rooting for Amat and have been his biggest fan since book 1, so to get so very little of him in this book feels like a hate crime to me. But every time he gets a scene it is so iconic. That scene when Lifa and Zacharias gave him an army, when he broke the awkwardness in that locker room when Benji was there for the first time after he was outed by asking Bobo's silly question and mentioning Bobo as his best friend, and that scene when he took Zacharias' parents to see him play esports and made the parents realize how proud they are of Zacharias. This boy is one of a kind and it's such a shame that he's not included in most of the scenes in this book. Here's hoping that we'll get more of him in The Winners.

LIFA AND ZACHARIAS. That scene where they give Amat an army is hands down the best part of the book for me. Truly one of the most memorable and best moments of the book series overall. These boys are really underrated but I'll always hype them up all day every day. We all need best friends like Lifa and Zacharias. And we all need more of Lifa and Zacharias in this book series.

BOBO. The best boy, the best son ever. I thought he had the best character development in book 1, but his character development was even better in this book. If in book 1 he transformed from being a bully into a stand up guy, in this book he evolved from a good boy and a good son into the best boy and the best son. I feel so sorry for him when his mom died, but he impressed me so much when he stepped up and took care of his siblings, read them Harry Potter at bed time, and he even cooked and cleaned, on top of assisting his father in his workshop. NOT TO MENTION how he asks Zackell to teach him to skate better so he can play for his team better. I love this guy so freaking much.

ANA AND VIDAR. My oasis amid all of these intense hockey and political drama. Was I pissed at Ana for outing Benji? Yes, very much. I was like, we were all rooting for you Ana, why do you have to fuck it all up?!

But I've grown now and have become more understanding than I was when I first read this book, and I can say that I felt for Ana this second time reading this book. She had too much on her plate and she was doing her best. Yes, she fucked up big time by outing Benji, but she was just human, and a teenage girl who is highly insecure, and she had just got rejected by a guy she liked, and he father is a drunk, so, like Lana Del Rey said, can't a girl just do the best she can? And she also said that people can change, but you don't have to leave her. So I think we need to be more understanding of Ana's situation And I used to hate that Ana ran away crying when she was admitting to Benji that she was the one who outed him, but now I think it just shows how much she regretted it and how embarrassed she was of what she did, and it's worth a thousand sorrys.

Now, I love Ana and Vidar's love story, but I just hoped that we get to know Vidar since much earlier in the book so we could have gotten to know him more and love him longer. Vidar was so special and such an interesting character. I'm no diagnostician, so this may not be true, but I think he has shown some symptoms of ADHD, and reading about him working on controlling himself is so precious, and even more precious when Ana was someone who could keep him focused and controlled. I loved it so much when Ana punched Vidar and told him that she doesn't want him to fight for her or put her on a pedestal because she loved him, and then he came and watched her practice martial arts while sitting on a pedestal. It's one of the sweetest romantic gestures ever. These two just gave me so much joy and they were a source of a much needed serotonin for me while reading this book.

What happened to Vidar was so tragic, but also beautiful because he died saving Ana, who was saving someone from a car that she worried was about to blow up, because that's just the kind of people they are, they save people and not turn their back on people. I also love that no one blamed Ana for Vidar's death because everyone knew it was Vidar's choice to throw himself and save Ana, because they were in crazy love with each other. These two love birds could have been the most powerful couple the town has ever had, there's so much these two could have accomplished together. Too many could have and would have. I'm still so heartbroken for them, but they were so beautiful while it lasted.

KIRA. SHE FINALLY GETS HER OWN FIRM!!! YASSS QUEEN!!!! Well, she co-owns it with her colleague, but you get what I mean. I'm so happy for her, she had waited so long for this, and what's more, Peter is now working for her too. I'm so hopeful that these two will be able to mend their marriage and be a happy family again.

As much as I love this book, I do have some criticisms…

The story of how Benji is actually really smart and knowledgeable, even well versed in classical literary and now even able to quote Friedrich Nietzsche because his mom used to punish him by reading the newspaper comes out of nowhere, and feels like a character trait that Fredrik added last minute for whatever reason (I think it's because his love interest in this book is this guy who's a teacher and seems to be a well-read man), because it's never been told in the first book. I don't know if it's wise to change or add something new to an already well loved character in the 2nd book of a trilogy. I'm not saying that I'm complaining that it makes Benji unlikable, if anything I love him more because of it, but it just feels like so out of nowhere.

I love that scene where Peter is talking to Alicia for the first time;

"Peter sees her bruises. He used to have similar ones. He knows she’ll lie if he asks how she got them; children are so incredibly loyal to their parents. So Peter crouches down and promises her with all the despair of his childhood shaking in his voice, “I can see that you’re used to getting hurt if you make a mistake. But hockey will never treat you like that. Do you understand what I’m saying? Hockey will never hurt you.”"

I love that scene and, yes, I cried, but like... also, please call child protective services? And hockey will never hurt you? Dozens of players getting injured, some with lifelong injuries, and some dead, beg to differ, Peter. Didn't he himself get injured so that he can no longer play in the NHL? In the grand scheme of things, hockey is a violent sport and people get hurt because of it and it decreases their quality of life outside of hockey too.

Also what about other little children who are abused who don't like or want to or are able to play hockey?

That scene when Zackell was firing paintball at Benji. is that not child abuse? HELLOWWW?? I'm so done with these mentors pushing their mentees to their limits, driving them insane, it's so abusive, because life isn't just about one thing that they're pushing these people to be absolutely best at. RE: Terrence Fletcher in Whiplash

IT'S FUCKING CRIMINAL THAT, IN CH. 39, THE FIRST TWO PERIODS OF THE GAME WENT ON AND THE BEARTOWN HOCKEY TEAM WAS DOWN 4-0, AND WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE HOW AMAT AND BOBO PLAY, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE PLAYING IN IT, BACKMAN SHOULD HAVE GIVEN US THE SCENES IN THE GAME WHERE AMAT AND BOBO PLAY. I GET THAT THE BENJI DRAMA TAKES A LOT OF PAGES AND SCENES, BUT I FEEL SAD THAT WE'RE MISSING AMAT AND BOBO'S SCENES. WHERE IS AMAT AND BOBO'S BOOK?!!! I FEEL ROBBED.

For me personally, there's not enough Alicia scenes in this, and the conclusion that she gets, that the kindergarten was being built inside the ice rink, it just seems so rushed.

We didn't get to know who won the final game between Hed vs Beartown. I get the whole point is that it no longer matters, because for one time these two rivals, despite their differences, come together to honor the lost soul from the tragic accident, but also, I need to know who won. I need to know if Amat and Bobo give it their all and win the cup for their town, even without Benji. Maybe it will be revealed in The Winners? But I think it should be included in this book, though.

The book gave too much away when it revealed that Amat will go Pro in NHL, Zacharias will go pro with his gaming in Esports, and Bobo will be a father. Because in book 1, he already revealed that between Benji, Amat, Zach and Bobo, two will go pro, one will be a father and one will die. I will read The Winners already knowing that Benji will die. I just don't know how or why yet. Not a fun way to start a book, knowing your comfort character's going to die.

How the heck did Zackell get into Ramona's apartment just in time to save her from the fire and the smoke? Is she a superhero or something? "Zackell isn't normal" is just not a logical explanation to me.

Benji challenging William for an "Agni Kai" instead of helping with the fire or going after those Hed guys who did it with the rest of the pack seems so out of his character for me, he's not stupid and should be able to have prioritized helping out or going after the perpetrators first. Like SIR? HELLOWW??? Now is NOT the time for a duel. And the way that scene ended?! They just went their separate ways, both equally injured and bonded over Kevin, but they were not friends or enemies? It's just a little too anticlimactic for me.

The end of the first book mentioned that one young girl will be Beartown's best hockey player, but we get so little of Alicia here. I feel like if we get more of this girl it will be a much welcomed fresh air amid all of this complicated political drama going on in this book. Like Ana and Vidar's love story, their scenes were like an oasis where I feel safe and a break from all of this tense drama, because it's just so much fun reading about these two cute love birds, but it was still too brief and I think adding more of Alicia's lighthearted scenes in there would have made the book a lot better.

Here are my favourite moments from the book:

When Benji "gave" Maya and Ana his and Kevin's Island.

That whole scene where Lifa and Zacharias gave Amat an army, when he didn't have a team.

When Zacharias parents finally see what Zacharias' sport actually is, and felt so proud of him that day, and Amat was there for Zacharias too, be his army for him.

When Benji was saved by Leo when the pack was fighting the men from Hed, and Benji saved Leo.

Every time Ana and Vidar are being cute together.

When Bobo became the best boy and the best son to his parents after his mom told him about her sickness.

When Benji was being interviewed for a job at Bearskin.

When Ana learns martial arts for the first time and the smell of cherry blossom comes off of the pages of this book.

And finally, here are my favorite quotes from the book:

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

"People driving through say that Beartown doesn’t live for anything but hockey, and some days they may be right. Sometimes people have to be allowed to have something to live for in order to survive everything else."

"We’re not mad, we’re not greedy; say what you like about Beartown, but the people here are tough and hardworking. So we built a hockey team that was like us, that we could be proud of, because we weren’t like you. When people from the big cities thought something seemed too hard, we just grinned and said, “It’s supposed to be hard.” Growing up here wasn’t easy; that’s why we did it, not you. We stood tall, no matter the weather. But then something happened, and we fell."

"Sometimes good people do terrible things in the belief that they’re trying to protect what they love."

"A community is the sum of its choices,"

"It is a story about hockey rinks and all the hearts that beat around them, about people and sports and how they sometimes take turns carrying each other. About us, people who dream and fight."

"People we love will die. We will bury our children beneath our most beautiful trees."

"The forest around them is getting drunk on sunlight, the trees sway happily beside the lakes, but the girls’ eyes are restless. This time of year used to be a time of endless adventure for them; they would spend all day out in nature and come home late in the evening with torn clothes and dirty faces, childhood in their eyes. That’s all gone. They’re adults now. For some girls that isn’t something you choose, it’s something that gets forced upon you."

"A mother is standing outside a house. She’s packing her child’s things into a car. How many times does that happen while they’re growing up? How many toys do you pick up from the floor, how many stuffed animals do you have to form search parties for at bedtime, how many mittens do you give up on at preschool? How many times do you think that if nature really does want people to reproduce, then perhaps evolution should have let all parents grow extra sets of arms so they can reach under all the wretched sofas and fridges? How many hours do we spend waiting in hallways for our kids? How many gray hairs do they give us? How many lifetimes do we devote to their single one? What does it take to be a good parent? Not much. Just everything. Absolutely everything."

"No matter how old they get, we never want to cry in front of our children. We’d do anything for them; they never know because they don’t understand the immensity of something that is unconditional. A parent’s love is unbearable, reckless, irresponsible. They’re so small when they sleep in their beds and we sit beside them, shattered to pieces inside. It’s a lifetime of shortcomings, and, feeling guilty, we stick happy pictures up everywhere, but we never show the gaps in the photograph album, where everything that hurts is hidden away. The silent tears in darkened rooms. We lie awake, terrified of all the things that can happen to them, everything they might be subjected to, all the situations in which they could end up victims."

"How many times does a mother make her child giggle? How many times does the child make her laugh out loud? Kids turn us inside out the first time we realize that they’re doing it intentionally, when we discover that they have a sense of humor. When they make jokes, learn to manipulate our feelings. If they love us, they learn to lie shortly after that, to spare our feelings, pretending to be happy. They’re quick to learn what we like. We might tell ourselves that we know them, but they have their own photograph albums, and they grow up in the gaps."

"After four hours of silence in the car, when they’re so far from Beartown that they can’t see any forest, Kevin whispers to his mother, “Do you think it’s possible to become a different person?”

She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip, and blinks so hard she can’t see the road in front of her. “No. But it’s possible to become a better person.” Then he holds out a trembling hand. She holds it as if he were three years old, as if he were dangling over the edge of a cliff. She whispers, “I can’t forgive you, Kevin. But I’ll never abandon you.”"

"The worst thing we know about other people is that we’re dependent upon them. That their actions affect our lives. Not just the people we choose, the people we like, but all the rest of them: the idiots."

"And what had Leo expected? That everyone would suddenly realize that Kevin was guilty and apologize? That the sponsors and players would come back to Beartown with their heads bowed? Like hell they did. No one bows their heads around here, for the simple reason that many of our worst deeds are the result of our never wanting to admit that we’re wrong. The greater the mistake and the worse the consequences, the more pride we stand to lose if we back down. So no one does."

"That way everyone was able to move far enough away from both perpetrator and victim, so now all Kevin’s former friends can call him a “psychopath” while still calling Maya a “bitch.” Lies are simple; truth is difficult."

"Amat hopes that one day he’s going to be good enough for hockey to take him and his mother away from here. For him sports are a future. Bobo just hopes he can have another season of laughter and no responsibilities, seeing as he knows that every day after that will be like all his dad’s days. For Bobo sports are a last chance for play.

For Alicia, the four-and-a-half-year-old girl firing pucks on a patio? Have you ever been in love? That’s what sports are for her."

"It’s easy for children to love hockey, because you don’t have time to think when you’re playing it. Memory loss is one of the finest things sports can give us."

"“Brothers and sisters should look out for each other,” that’s what everyone says when you’re growing up. “Don’t argue! Stop fighting! Brothers and sisters should look out for each other!” Leo and Maya were supposed to have a big brother; perhaps he would have been able to protect them. His name was Isak, and he died before they were born of the sort of illness that makes it impossible for Leo to believe that there’s a god. Leo barely understood that Isak had been a real person until he was seven years old and found a photograph album with pictures of him with their parents. They laughed so much in those pictures. Hugged each other so tightly, loved each other so infinitely. Isak taught Leo an unbearable number of things that day, without even existing. He taught him that love isn’t enough. That’s a terrible thing to learn when you’re seven years old. Or at any age."

"Maya goes to the bathroom and throws up. Ana sits on the floor of the hall outside. She has read that support groups for victims of rape call themselves “survivors.” Because that’s what they do each day: they survive what they’ve been subjected to, over and over again. Ana wonders if there’s a word for everyone else, the people who let it happen. People are already prepared to destroy each other’s worlds just to avoid having to admit that many of us bear small portions of a collective guilt for a boy’s actions. It’s easier if you deny it, if you tell yourself that it’s an “isolated incident.” Ana dreams of killing Kevin for what he’s done to her best friend, but most of all she dreams of crushing the whole town for what it’s still putting Maya through."

"The idiots won’t say it was Kevin who killed Beartown Ice Hockey; they’ll say that “the scandal” killed the club. Because their real problem isn’t that Kevin raped someone but that Maya got raped. If she hadn’t existed, it wouldn’t have happened. Women are always the problem in the men’s world."

"Everyone is a hundred different things, but in other people’s eyes we usually get the chance to be only one of them."

"When everything else is collapsing, you throw yourself into the only thing you know you can control, the only place you feel you know what you’re doing. Everything else hurts too much. So you go to work and hide there, the way mountain climbers dig holes in the snow when a storm hits."

"As a child he always loved the summer, when the foliage lets boys hide in trees without being seen from the ground. He’s always had a lot to hide from, as anyone does who’s different in a locker room where everyone learns that you have to be a single unit, a clan, a team, in order to win together. So Benji became what they needed: the wild one. So feared that once, when he was wounded, the coach put him on the bench anyway. He didn’t play a single minute, but the opposing team still didn’t dare lay a finger on Kevin."

"When a child gets a best friend, it’s like a first infatuation; we want to be with them all the time, and if they leave us it’s like an amputation."

"Kevin and Benji came from such different parts of town that they could easily have been different species, but the ice became their dance floor. Kevin had the genius and Benji the violence. It took a decade before everyone realized that there was a bit of genius in Benji, too, and a lot more violence in Kevin."

"If you want to know why people sacrifice everything for love, you have start by asking how they fell in love. Sometimes it doesn’t take anything at all for us to start loving something. Just time."

"Peter Andersson’s mom was ill, and his dad used to get so drunk that he would shout as if his son didn’t have ears and would hit him as if they were complete strangers. Peter grew up with a head full of voices whispering that he was no good at anything, and the first time they fell silent was when he pulled on a pair of skates. You can’t give a boy what he found in hockey classes and then take it away without there being consequences. Summer came, the rink closed, but five-year-old Peter marched around to the home of the A-team coach and banged on the door. “When does hockey start?” he demanded to know.

Sune, the A-team coach smiled. “In the autumn.” He was already an old man, and his stomach was so round that he could talk only in circular arguments. “How long is it until then?” the five-year-old asked. “Till the autumn?” The coach grunted. “I can’t tell time,” the five-year-old said. “It’s several months,” the coach muttered. “Can I wait here?” the five-year-old asked. “Until autumn?” the coach exclaimed. “Is that a long time?” the five-year-old asked. It was the start of a lifelong friendship.

Sune never asked about the bruises, the five-year-old never talked about them, but every blow he received at home was visible in his eyes the first time he learned to shoot a puck in the coach’s small garden. The coach was aware that hockey can’t change a child’s life, but it can offer a different one. A way out and up."

"Sune taught Peter what a club is. It’s not something you blame nor something you demand things of. “Because it’s us, Peter, Beartown Ice Hockey is you and me. The best and worst things it achieves demonstrate the best and worst sides of us.” He taught Peter other things, too, such as standing tall both when you win and when you lose, and that the most talented players have a duty to elevate the weakest because “a great deal is expected of anyone who’s been given a lot.”"

"Benji knows that grief and anger can reprogram a brain like chemicals and drugs do. Maybe there’s a time bomb inside some people’s heads the whole time, just waiting for a switch to be thrown. Maybe his mom’s right, some people are just the sort who start wars."

"She often thinks that Ana is simultaneously the strongest and weakest person she knows. Ana’s dad is drinking again; it’s no one’s fault, that’s just the way it is. Maya wishes she could take the pain away from Ana, but she can no more do that than Ana can take the rape away from Maya. They’re falling into different chasms. Maya has her nightmares, and Ana has her own reasons for not being able to sleep. She sleeps with the dogs on the nights her dad comes home late and rages about in the kitchen like a monster made up of sorrow and unspoken words. The dogs lie in a protective circle around Ana without her asking them. Beloved creatures. Her dad has never, not so much as once, raised his hand against his daughter. But she’s still frightened of him when he’s been drinking. Men don’t know their own weight, they don’t understand the physical terror they can instil in another person simply by tumbling through a door. They’re hurricanes tearing through a forest of saplings as they get up drunkenly from the kitchen table and stumble from room to room without being aware of what they’re trampling on. The next morning they don’t remember anything; the empty bottles have been cleared away and the glasses washed in secret, and the house is silent. No one says anything. They must never see the destruction they’ve left behind them in their children."

"Ana stops and turns around. Maya looks at her and smiles weakly. “God, I love you so much,” she thinks, and Ana knows."

"It takes time to learn to love something but much less to kill it: a single moment will do."

"The best friends of our childhoods are the loves of our lives, and they break our hearts in worse ways."

"Benji walks toward the water, but just before he jumps from the rocks Maya calls after him, “Hey!”

He turns around. Her voice breaks. “I hope you’re one of the people who gets a happy ending, Benji.”

The young man nods quickly and turns away before she has a chance to realize how much that means to him."

"He’s become a man who doesn’t take anything for granted; only children think certain things are self-evident: always having a best friend, for instance. Being allowed to be who we are. Being able to love who we want. Nothing is self-evident to Benji anymore; he just runs deeper into the forest until his brain is gasping for oxygen and he can no longer feel anything. Then he climbs up into a tree. And waits for the wind."

"He pulls up at a pedestrian crossing. A young father is crossing the road with his daughter, eight or nine years old. The father is holding her hand, and the girl is making it very plain that she thinks she’s way too old for that. Peter has to stop himself getting out of the car and shouting at the father to never let go. Never let go! Never!

...

Peter feels like leaping out of the car and shouting at that father, “Never let her out of your sight, never trust anyone, and don’t let her go to that party!”

...

Peter wants to shout at the dad crossing the road, “NEVER LET GO BECAUSE THOSE BASTARDS WILL TAKE YOUR WHOLE LIVES AWAY FROM YOU!”"

"All parents know. It’s not a voluntary process, it’s an emotional assault; you become someone else’s property the first time you hear your child cry. You belong to that little person now. Before everything else. So when something happens to your child, it never stops being your fault."

"Every discussion about sports dissolves sooner or later into a thousand “ifs” and ten thousand “if only that hadn’ts.” Some people’s lives get stuck the same way, year after year passing by with the same story being repeated to strangers at an ever more deserted bar counter: a doomed relationship, a dishonest business partner, an unfair dismissal, ungrateful kids, an accident, a divorce. One single reason why everything went to hell."

"Kevin’s father gave him money and promised to get his mother a better job. If anyone condemns Amat for giving the offer serious consideration, that person has lived a life where morality is easy. It never is. Morality is a luxury."

"Benji. Amat. Bobo. Inside every large story there are always plenty of small ones. While three young men in Beartown thought they were in the process of losing their club, a stranger was already constructing a team with them."

"He can get the people on his side. They call him a populist, but the only difference between him and the other parties is that he doesn’t need flags: they have their offices on the top floor of the council building and play golf with business leaders, whereas Richard Theo has his office on the ground floor. He collects his information from people who have lost their jobs rather than from the people firing them, from the people who are angry instead of the ones who are happy, so he doesn’t need flags to tell him which way the wind is blowing. While all the other politicians are running in the same direction, men like Richard Theo go the other way. And sometimes that’s how they win."

"Richard Theo has the same idea about the hockey clubs, but his goal is to alter the balance. Because political elections are simple: When everything is going well, when people are happy, the establishment wins. But when people are angry and arguing, people like Richard Theo win. Because for an outsider to win power requires a conflict. But if there’s no conflict? You have to create one."

"Ann-Katrin had never traveled, had never seen the world, had never felt the need. “The most beautiful trees are here,” she promised Fatima, adding “And the men aren’t too bad either, if you’re patient.”

Hog and their three children—Bobo is the eldest—have kept Ann-Katrin busy. She gets up early, feeds and clothes them, helps Hog with the paperwork in the workshop, then goes to the hospital and works long shifts full of the worst days in other people’s lives. Then home again, “homework to be done and the house to sort out and tears to be wiped from cheeks from time to time.”

But in the evenings, she told Fatima, Hog creeps through the kitchen more softly than a man of his bulk ought to be able to. And when he holds her, when she turns around close to him and they dance, with her toes on his feet so that he’s carrying her whole weight with every little step, it’s all worth it. It becomes the whole world."

"“I’m not well, Bobo . . . ,” she whispers.

Bobo cries when she tells him, but she cries more. Bobo isn’t the little boy who used to jump up into her arms anymore; he’s big enough now to have space in his chest for the greatest sorrow and tall and strong enough to pick his mother up and carry her home after she’s told him she’s going to die. She whispers against his neck, “You’ve always been the best big brother in the world. You’re going to have to be even better now.”

That evening she hears him read Harry Potter to his little brother and sister. That night Hog makes some weak tea and Bobo comes into the bathroom and holds his mom’s hair when she throws up. When she’s lying on her bed, her son wipes her cheeks and says, “Do you want to hear something silly? You know you’re always telling me I’ll never find a girlfriend because my demands are too high? That’s your fault. Because I want someone who looks at me the way you and Dad look at each other.”

Ann-Katrin presses Bobo’s big, dumb lummox’s head tight to her forehead. She would have loved to see him get married. Become a dad. Life is so damn, damn, damn tough sometimes that it’s almost unbearable. Even if that’s the way it’s supposed to be."

"All sports are silly. All games are ridiculous. Two teams, one ball, sweat and grunting, and for what? So that for a few baffling moments we can pretend that it’s the only thing that matters."

"They kiss for a long time in the hallway. When the man wakes up in bed the next morning, Benji is already gone.

The man finds his book where he dropped it, between the front door and the bedroom. He leafs through it until he finds the quote he’s looking for: “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

Some distance away a young man is standing in a cemetery firing pucks at a gravestone. He has scraped knuckles, and worse things are going on inside him. Alain Ovich is dead, and Kevin Erdahl may as well be. Benji is a man who loves men, and he loses everyone he loves.

It’s hard to have more chaos in oneself than that."

"It’s impossible to measure love, but that doesn’t stop us coming up with new ways to try. One of the simplest is space: How much space am I prepared to give the person that you are so that you can become the person you want to become?"

"Kira once made a valiant attempt to discuss this with Peter in terms of ice hockey: “A marriage is like a hockey season, darling, okay? 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. You measure it from everyday life, at home, at its lowest level, from how you talk to each other and solve problems.”"

"She doesn’t know why, but she’s thinking a lot about her parents this summer. When you’re a teenager, you want them to be sexless, but somewhere along the way the smallest memories of affection between our parents get imprinted on our DNA. Parents who divorce, like Ana’s, can stop a child believing in eternal love. Parents who stick together for a lifetime can make a child take it for granted instead."

"Children notice when their parents lose each other in the very smallest ways, in something as insignificant as a single word, such as “your.” Maya texts them each morning now and pretends it’s to stop them worrying about her, even though it’s actually the reverse. She’s used to them calling each other “Mom” and “Dad.” As in “Mom didn’t really mean you were grounded for a thousand years, darling,” or “Dad didn’t demolish your snowman on purpose, he just tripped, darling.” But suddenly one day, almost incidentally, one of them writes, “Can’t you call your mom, she’s worries so much when you’re not home?” And the other writes, “Remember, your dad and I love you more than anything.” Four letters can reveal the end of a marriage. “Your.” As if they didn’t belong to each other anymore."

"Anyone who devotes his life to being the best at one single thing will be asked, sooner or later, the same question: “Why?” Because if you want to become the best at something, you have to sacrifice everything else."

“Theo nodded and seemed not to take offense: “You’re only an opportunist until you win, then you’re the establishment.” When he saw Peter’s look of distaste, he added, “With all due respect, Peter, politics is about realizing that the world is complicated even though people like you would prefer it to be simple.”

Peter shook his head. “You thrive on discord. Your type of politics creates conflict. Exclusion.” The politician smiled understandingly. “And hockey? What do you think that does to everyone who isn’t on the inside? Do you even remember me from school?” Peter cleared his throat awkwardly and muttered, “You were a few years below me, weren’t you?” Theo shook his head, not angrily, not accusingly, but almost sadly. “We were in the same class, Peter.”"

"The boy goes into his big sister’s room, closes the door, and curls up on the floor. Maya’s notebooks are under the bed, full of poems and song lyrics, and he reads them through different types of tears. Sometimes hers, sometimes his own. Maya was never like other big sisters who yelled and threw their younger siblings out of their rooms. When Leo was younger, he was allowed to come in here. Maya let him sleep in her bed when he was frightened, when they eavesdropped on their parents in the kitchen and heard them fall apart when they talked about Isak. The floor next to Maya’s bed was always Leo’s safest place. But he’s older now, and Maya is spending the whole summer out in the forest with Ana. Leo used to ask Maya’s advice about everything, so he doesn’t know who to ask now, about what a little brother is supposed to do for his big sister when she gets raped. Or what he can do for his parents when they let go of each other. Or what to do with all the hatred."

"“Everything is political. Everyone needs allies.”"

"Tails made the pass, Peter missed the net. Tails may feel that they won silver, but Peter just thinks they lost gold. It was his fault. But Tails wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and says quietly, “If I had a hundred chances to do it again, I’d pass the puck to you every time, Peter. I’d sell all my stores for you. That’s what you do when you have a star in the team: you trust him. You give him the puck.”

Peter stares at the floor. “Where can a man find friends as loyal as you, Tails?”

Tails flushes with pride. “On the ice. Only on the ice.”"

"Lifa’s eyes are blazing. “We played hockey with you every evening because we could see how crazy good you were, Amat. What you could become.”

“I haven’t even got a team now, I—” Amat whimpers, but Lifa cuts him off.

“Shut up! You’re going to get away from here, and you know why?

Because whether you give up or not, these kids here are going to do what you do. So you need to get training! Because when you’re playing in the NHL and get interviewed on TV, you can say you came from here. You came from the Hollow, and you did something with your life. And every kid in these blocks will know that. And they’ll want to be like you, not me.”

Tears are running down Lifa’s face, but he makes no attempt to hide them. “You selfish bastard! Can’t you see what everyone else here would give to have your talent?”

Amat’s hands are shaking. Lifa walks over and hugs him as though they’re eight years old again. He kisses his hair and whispers, “We’ll come running with you. Every mad sod here will come running with you all summer, if that’s what it takes.”

He’s not joking. Lifa runs up and down along the road beside Amat that night until he collapses, and after Amat has carried his friend home on his back, Zacharias starts running in his place. When he can’t run anymore, others kids show up. Two dozen certifiable lunatics who promise Amat not to smoke and drink as long as he needs someone to train with.

In ten years’ time, when Amat is playing hockey professionally, he won’t have forgotten this. Some of the guys here will have died of overdoses, others will have died violently, some will be in prison, and some will just have made a mess of their lives. But some will have lives—big, proud lives. And they will all know that here, for just one summer, they were running for something. Amat will be interviewed on television in English, and the reporter will ask where he grew up, and he will say, “I’m from the Hollow.” And every single bastard here will know that he remembers them.

He had no team. So they gave him an army."

"Kira Andersson is sitting on the steps outside the little house. Waiting for a man who never comes. She knows what her colleague would have said: “Men! You know why you can never rely on men? Because they love men! No one loves men as much as men do, Kira! They can’t even watch sports if it’s not being played by men! Sweaty, panting men fighting against other men, with ten thousand men in the stands, that’s what men want. I bet you they’ll soon invent a type of porn featuring nothing but men but aimed at heterosexual men who don’t really get turned on by men but don’t think women are actually capable of having sex properly!”"

"Sune scratches his stomach. As he always says, we only pretend hockey is complicated, because it isn’t really. When you strip away all the nonsense surrounding it, the game is simple: everyone gets a stick; there are two nets, two teams. Us against you."

"Sune’s breathing sounds labored as he replies, “I’ve always known that Beartown Ice Hockey is more than a club. I don’t believe in targets and tables, I believe in signs and symbols. I think it’s more important to nurture human beings than to foster stars. And so do you.""

"“When the hell can you be sure of anything, Peter? All I know is that the bear is supposed to symbolize the best of this town, but there are people around who want to bury it as a symbol of our worst qualities. And if we let those bastards get away with it, if we let them transfer all the money to Hed as soon as it suits their purposes, what signal are we giving the kids in this town then? That we were only a club? That this is what happens if you dare to stand up and tell the truth?”

“In what way is Zackell different from you?” Peter asks.

“She’s a winner,” Sune says."

"The game may be simple, but people never are."

"Politics is an endless series of negotiations and compromises, and even if the processes are often complicated, the foundations are always simple: everyone wants to be paid, one way or another, so most parts of all bureaucratic systems work the same way: give me something, and I’ll give you something. That’s how we build civilizations."

"Politicians need conflict to win elections, but they also need allies. Richard Theo knows only two ways of getting someone who doesn’t like you to fight on your side regardless: a shared enemy or a shared friend."

"There’s a loser in every relationship. We may not like to admit it, but one of us always gets a little more and one of us always gives up a little more readily."

"But what is a marriage if you take away the infatuation? A negotiation. Dear Lord, it’s hard enough for two people to agree what TV program to watch, let alone fashion an entire life together. Someone has to sacrifice something."

"It’s only a hockey club. Only a game. Only pretend. There will always be people who try to tell Alicia that, and obviously she’ll never listen to them, the little brat. She’s four and a half years old, and tomorrow she will knock on Sune’s door again. The old man will teach her to fire hockey pucks harder and harder at the wall of his house. The marks on the wall will be like the grandchildren’s drawings other old men pin up on their fridges: tiny etchings in time to prove that someone we love grew up here."

"“How are you getting on at preschool?” Sune asks.

“The boys are stupid,” the four-and-a-half-year-old says.

“Hit them in the face,” Sune advises.

The four-and-a-half-year-old says she will. You have to keep your promises. But when Sune walks home with her later, he adds, “But you have to be a good friend to the kids who haven’t got any friends. And you have to defend the ones who are weaker. Even when it’s hard, even when you think it’s a nuisance, even when you’re scared. You always have to be a good friend.”

“Why?” the girl asks.

“Because one day you’re going to be the best. And then the coach will make you team captain. And then you have to remember that a great deal is expected of anyone who’s been given a lot.”"

"Every autumn, winter, and spring the whole family lives according to the dictates of hockey, raised up to the heavens when the team wins and tumbling headlong when it loses. Kira doesn’t know if she can bear to put herself through yet another season. But she still stands up and says, “What’s love if we aren’t prepared to make sacrifices?”"

"Kira touches his cheek. “Tails loves you. Oh, how he loves you, darling. There may be people in this town who hate you, and you can’t do anything about that. But there are far more who worship you, and you can’t do anything about that, either. Sometimes I wish you weren’t indispensible to them, that I didn’t have to share you, but I knew when I married you that half your heart belongs to hockey.”

“That’s not true . . . please . . . ask me to resign, and I’ll do it!”

She doesn’t ask him. She spares him from having to reveal that he’s lying. You do that if you love someone. She says, “I’m one of the people who worship you. And I’m on your team, no matter what. Go and save your club.”

His answer is barely audible. “Next year, darling, just give me one more season . . . next year . . .”

Kira hands him the wineglass. It’s either half full or half empty. She kisses her husband on the lips, and he whispers “I love you,” his breath mingling with hers. She replies, “Win, darling. If you’re really going to do this . . . win!”"

"One year? What wouldn’t we give for one more year? A year is an eternity."

"Bobo is crawling about on the floor like an overweight deer. Amat runs over and holds out his hand and together with Benji pulls him to his feet, groaning.

Amat grins. “How can you possibly be so heavy but so easy to knock over?”

Bobo, who isn’t exactly known for his sharp wits, unexpectedly manages to fire back, “My cock affects my center of gravity.”

Amat and Benji’s laughter echoes along the corridor. They’re the only three members of last season’s junior team who are still with Beartown Ice Hockey, and right now that feels as though it might just be enough."

"It’s hard to care about people. Exhausting, in fact, because empathy is a complicated thing. It requires us to accept that everyone else’s lives are also going on the whole time. We have no pause button for when everything gets too much for us to deal with, but then neither does anyone else."

"“Do you remember that little girl, Alicia, who was firing pucks in my garden? She came to the rink today, seven times. She ran away from her preschool to watch the A-team train. I took her back, but she ran away again. She’s going to keep on doing that all autumn.”

“Is it possible to lock children up?” Zackell wonders, possibly not quite understanding the point Sune is trying to make, so Sune clarifies: “Children take all the things they grow up with for granted. After watching you coach the A-team today, Alicia will take it for granted that women do that. When she’s old enough to play on an A-team, there may not be female hockey coaches. Just . . . hockey coaches.”

That means something to Sune. Something important."

"She’s seen this town blossom, but in recent years she’s also seen it take a beating. People in Beartown know how to work, but they need somewhere to do it. They know how to fight, but they need something to fight for.

The only thing you can rely on in all towns, big and small alike, is that there will be broken people. It’s nothing to do with the place, just life; it can beat us up. And if that happens, it’s easy to find your way to a pub; bars can quickly become sad places. Someone who has nowhere else to go can grasp a glass a little too tightly; someone who’s tired of falling can take refuge in the bottom of a bottle, seeing as you can’t fall much further from there."

"Can things ever turn around? Or do we just get used to them?"

"but the worst thing about paranoia is that the only way to prove you’re not paranoid is to be proved right."

"Some children never quite manage to escape their parents; they’re guided by their compass, see through their eyes. When terrible things happen, most people become waves, but some people become rocks. Waves are tossed back and forth when the wind comes, but the rocks just take a beating, immovable, waiting for the storm to blow over."

"Adri was a child, but she took the rifle from her father and sat on a stump holding his hand in hers. Perhaps it was shock, unless she was consciously saying good-bye, both to him and to herself. She became someone different after that. When she stood up and walked back through the forest to Beartown, she didn’t scream for help in panic; she walked purposefully to the homes of the best and strongest hunters, so that they could help her carry the body. When her mother collapsed screaming in the hall, Adri caught her, because the girl had already done her crying. She was ready to be the rock. Has been ever since."

"Zackell has almost finished her meal when Ramona returns to the table and puts a beer down in front of her.

“From the regulars,” Ramona says.

Zackell looks over at the five old men at the bar. “Them?”

Ramona shakes her head. “Their wives.”

In the far corner sit five old women. Gray hair, handbags on the table, wrinkled hands tightly clutching glasses of beer. Several of them have children and grandchildren who work at the factory; some of them worked there themselves. The old women have old bodies but new T-shirts. All the same. Green, with four words written on them, like a war cry:

BEARTOWN

AGAINST

THE

REST"

"There’s no real autumn in Beartown, just a quick blink before winter. The snow doesn’t even have the manners to let the leaves decompose in peace. The darkness comes fast, but at least these months have been full of a lot of light: a club that fought and survived. A grown man who put a reassuring hand on a four-and-a-half-year-old’s shoulder. Hockey that was more than a game. Beer on a stranger’s table. Green T-shirts that said we fight together, no matter what. Boys with the biggest dreams. Friends who formed an army."

"It isn’t fair, but sports isn’t fair. The player who spends the most hours practicing doesn’t always end up being the best, and the player who deserves to be made team captain isn’t always the most suitable. It’s often said that hockey isn’t a contemplative sport: “We just count goals.” That isn’t strictly true, of course. Hockey counts everything, it’s full of statistics, yet it’s impossible to predict. It’s governed too much by things that aren’t visible. One term that is often used to describe talented players, for instance, is “leadership qualities,” even though this is an utterly immeasurable concept seeing that it is based on things that can’t be taught: charisma, authority, love.

When William Lyt was younger and Kevin Erdahl was made team captain, William heard the coach say to Kevin, “You can force people to obey you, but you can never force them to follow you. If you want them to play for you, they have to love you.”"

"People say that leadership is about making difficult decisions, unpalatable and unpopular decisions. “Do your job,” leaders are constantly being told. The impossible part of the job is, of course, that a leader can carry on leading only as long as someone follows him, and people’s reactions to leadership are always the same: if a decision of yours benefits me, you’re fair, and if the same decision harms me, you’re a tyrant. The truth about most people is as simple as it is unbearable: we rarely want what is best for everyone; we mostly want what’s best for ourselves."

"Is David proud of himself? Definitely not. So why doesn’t he just go see Benji and tell him the truth: that he is ashamed of having been such a poor leader that the boy didn’t feel safe enough to tell the truth about himself. Why doesn’t David just apologize? Probably for the same reason that all of us commit all our stupidest mistakes: it’s hard to admit that we’ve been wrong. And the bigger the mistake, the harder it is."

"Kira is sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop; she came home from work early today to cook for the children and do the washing and cleaning. Now she’s working again, but without her bosses seeing: she puts in more hours than any of her colleagues but will soon be known in the office as the woman who always goes home early. Being a mother can be like drying out the foundations of a house or mending a roof: it takes time, sweat, and money, and once it’s done everything looks exactly the same as it did before. It’s not the sort of thing anyone gives you praise for. But spending an extra hour in the office is like hanging up a beautiful painting or a new lamp: everyone notices."

"“When the Devil gets old, he gets religious.”"

"Men are busy, but boys don’t stop growing. Sons want their fathers’ attention until the precise moment when fathers want their sons’. From then on we’re all doomed to wish that we’d fallen asleep beside them more often, while their head could still fit on our chest. That we’d spent more time sitting on the floor while they were playing. Hugged them while they still let us."

"They run only where there are lights. They don’t say anything but are both thinking the same thing: guys never think about light, it just isn’t a problem in their lives. When guys are scared of the dark, they’re scared of ghosts and monsters, but when girls are scared of the dark, they’re scared of guys."

"The girl tricked him; he’s going to carry a lump of black fury in his gut forever to remind him of how he felt when she ran and he realized that they’d planned this and how they must have laughed when they did. And there’s something about violence, about adrenaline, about the different frequencies in some people’s hearts."

"Kira dropped them off outside the concert and made them promise to come straight out the moment it was over, and they promised and laughed, and they were only children but Kira knew she’d lost them, ever so slightly, at that moment. They ran off toward the stage hand in hand, along with hundreds of other screaming girls, and that first taste of freedom is something you can never take away from someone. Music transformed Maya and Ana, and even if they chose completely different styles of music later in life and did nothing but argue about what was “junkie music” and what was “bleep-bleep music,” they still had that in common: music saved something inside them that might otherwise have been lost. Imagination, power, a glowing spark in their chests that always reminded them: “Don’t let the bastards tell you what to be, go your own way, dance badly and sing loudly and become the best!”"

"You try to be a good parent, in every way, but you never know how. It’s not a difficult job. Just impossible. Peter is standing outside his daughter’s room with a pair of drumsticks in his hand. She used to be his little girl, it was his job to protect her, but now he can’t even look her in the eye because he feels so ashamed.

When she was little, they lay together on a bed that was too narrow on one of those nights when it felt as though they were the last two people on Earth. The little child lay asleep against his neck, and he hardly dared breathe. Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s, and his kept pace; he was so happy that he was terrified, so complete that he could think only of the fragments if life shattered again. Children make us vulnerable. That’s the problem with dreams: you can get to the top of the mountain and discover that you’re scared of heights."

"Violence is the easiest and the hardest thing in the world to understand. Some of us are prepared to use it to get power, others only in self-defense, some all the time, others not at all. But then there’s another type, unlike all the others, who seems to fight entirely without purpose. Ask anyone who has looked into a pair of those eyes when they turn dark, and you’ll realize that we belong to different species. No one can really know if those people lack something that other people possess or if it’s the other way around. If something goes out inside them when they clench their fists or if something switches on."

"Leo gets to know Benji that night. Gets to know his fears. Benji isn’t afraid of fighting, he’s not afraid of getting beaten up, not even afraid of dying. But he’s terrified of this: turning around and seeing a twelve-year-old get hurt and feeling responsible. Anyone who feels responsibility isn’t free."

"Benji’s chin drops, and a knot in his chest tightens. He can see that Leo is awestruck by his ability to hurt other people. Benji doesn’t know who he hates most for that.

“You haven’t got it in you, Leo,” he says quietly.

The boy snaps. Not just his voice, his whole being. “Kevin raped my sister! What sort of man am I if I don’t—”

Benji hugs the boy and whispers in his ear, “I’ve got sisters, too, and if anyone did to one of them what Kevin did to Maya, I’d be full of hate, too.”

Leo splutters in despair, “If Kevin raped one of your sisters, you’d have killed him!”

Benji knows he’s right. So he tells the truth: “So don’t end up like me, then. Because once you do, it’s too late to change.”"

"A younger boy stops at a different locker in the same school. Twelve years old. Covered in bruises. Yesterday he grabbed a branch and threw himself into a fight without hesitation in order to smash the legs of someone who was trying to hurt Benjamin Ovich. That sort of thing doesn’t go unnoticed in this town.

Today there’s something hanging from his locker. At first he thinks it’s a trash bag. He couldn’t be more wrong. It’s a black jacket. No logos or emblems or symbols, just a perfectly ordinary black jacket. It doesn’t mean anything. It means everything. It’s far too big for Leo, because they want him to know that he can’t become one of them until he’s much older. But they’ve hung it on his locker so that everyone in his school will get the message.

He’s got brothers now. You don’t touch him again."

"The men who make up the Pack aren’t extremists; what makes them dangerous is simply the fact that they stick together. Against everything, through everything, for one another. Benji remembers a book he read by some journalist who said on the subject of sport and violence that “every large group you don’t yourself belong to is a threat.”"

"Anxiety is a truly remarkable thing."

"Anxiety. It’s such a peculiar thing. Almost everyone knows what it feels like, yet none of us can describe it. Maya looks at herself in the mirror, wonders why it can’t be seen on the outside. Not even on X-rays—how does that work? How can something that bangs away at us so horribly hard on the inside not show up on the pictures as black scars, scorched into our skeletons? How can the pain she feels not be visible in the mirror?"

"When people talk about rape, they always do so in the past tense. She “was.” She “suffered.” She “went through.”

But she didn’t go through it, she’s still going through it. She wasn’t raped, she’s still being raped. For Kevin it lasted a matter of minutes, but for her it never ends. It feels as though she’s going to dream about that running track every night of her life. And she kills him there, every time. And wakes up with her nails dug into her hands and a scream in her mouth.

Anxiety. It’s an invisible ruler."

"That night Maya writes a song she’ll never perform. It is called “Hear Me.”

Every man I know, every father and brother and son,

Always these clenched hands. Where did you get that idea from?

Always this violence, always round holes and a square block,

The absurd idea you were sold, that we want you to fight for us.

If you want to do something for us,

Put a weapon down for me,

Close the maw of hell for me,

Be a friend to me,

Try to be good men for me.

You boast about all you’re going to do for me.

So when are you going to stop ruining things for me?

Do you want to know what you can do for me?

Start by hearing me."

"But there are other things you can’t grow either: parents are a sort of plant you can’t choose, with roots that go deep and catch your feet in a way that only the child of an addict can understand."

"Anxiety. It owns us but leaves no trace."

"Some people just have a core of sadness."

"“Sorry.”

That’s the worst thing. Daughters have no defense against that word."

"“Do you hate Maya?”

“No,” Benji replies.

He doesn’t play stupid, he understands the question, and Ana falls in love with him for that. She clarifies: “I don’t mean, do you hate her for being raped. I mean . . . do you hate her for existing? If she hadn’t been there that night . . . you’d still have everything, your best friend, your team . . . your life was perfect. You had everything. And now—”

Benji replies in a neutral tone of voice, “I ought to hate Kevin if I was going to hate anyone.”

“So do you?”

“No.”

“Who do you hate, then?” Ana asks, but she knows.

Benji hates his own reflection. So does Ana. Because they should have been there. They should have stopped it. Things shouldn’t have gone completely to hell for their friends. It should always have been Ana and Benji. Because they aren’t the kind of people who get happy endings."

"Everyone has moments when her skin’s longing for someone else’s touch becomes unbearable."

"Peter feels as though he’s suffocating. “Why are you so keen to take on the Pack?”

Theo replies, “Because they rule with the help of violence. A democracy can’t allow that. Anyone who becomes powerful because they’ve physically fought their way to the top needs to be opposed. You can always be absolutely certain of one thing when it comes to power, Peter: no one who gets their hands on it ever lets go of it voluntarily.”"

"She’s never felt more alone, and loneliness drives everyone to make bad decisions, but perhaps none more than sixteen-year-olds."

"It’s so easy to think that what we post online is like raising your voice in a living room when it’s actually more like shouting from the rooftops. Our fantasy worlds always have consequences for other people’s realities"

"Our spontaneous reactions are rarely our proudest moments. It’s said that a person’s first thought is the most honest, but that often isn’t true. It’s often just the most stupid. Why else would we have afterthoughts?"

"It’s always the aggressors’ feelings we have to defend. As if they’re the ones who need our understanding."

"It’s only words. Combinations of letters. How can they possibly hurt anyone?"

"“There may be equality on the ice. But the same thing doesn’t apply to the sport in general, Peter.”

“No. And that’s our fault. Yours and mine and everyone else’s.” Peter throws his arms out. “But what are we supposed to do?”

Sune raises an eyebrow. “We see to it that the next kid who says he’s different in some way is met with a shrug of the shoulders. We need to say, ‘So what? That doesn’t matter, does it?’ And one day perhaps there won’t be homosexual hockey players and female coaches. Just hockey players and coaches.”

“The community isn’t that simple,” Peter says.

“The community? We are the community!” Sune replies."

"Peter snaps back in frustration, “So what do you think Benjamin wants us to do, then?”

“Nothing.”

“We have to do something!”

“Do you care about his sexuality? Does it change the way you look at him?”

“Of course not!”

Sune pats Peter on the shoulder. “I’m a silly old man, Peter. I don’t always know what’s right and what’s wrong. But Benjamin has been the cause of a lot of crap outside this ice rink over the years, fighting and smoking dope and God knows what else. But he’s a damn good player, so you and everyone else has said, every time, ‘That has nothing to do with hockey.’ So why should this have anything to do with hockey? Let the boy live his life. Don’t force him to become a figurehead. If we’re uncomfortable with his sexuality, then he’s not the one with the damn problem—we are!”"

"Sune scratches his remaining hair. “Secrets weigh a person down. Can you imagine what it must have been like to carry around that secret about yourself your whole life? Hockey was his refuge. The ice may have been the only place where he felt just the same as everyone else. Don’t take that away from him.”

“So what do I do?”

“Let him earn his place in the team on the strength of his hockey alone, just like everyone else. He’s going to be treated differently everywhere else now. Don’t let that happen to him here.”"

"Maya doesn’t heal inside that barn. She doesn’t build a time machine, she doesn’t change the past, she isn’t blessed with memory loss. But she will come back here every day and learn martial arts, and one day soon she will be standing in the line at the supermarket when a stranger accidentally brushes past her. And she won’t flinch. It’s the greatest of all small events, and no one understands. But she will walk home from the store that day as if she were on her way somewhere. That evening she will come back to train some more. And the next day."

"The first thing Vidar notices is how beautiful her ankles are, as if they weren’t meant for floors but for running through forests and over rocks. The first thing Ana notices is Vidar’s black hair, so thin that it hangs over the skin of his face like raindrops on a windowpane.

In many years’ time we might say this was a story about violence. But that won’t be true, at least not entirely.

It’s also a love story."

"“What are you playing?” she asks.

“What?” he mumbles, as if he’s only just noticed her.

She’s not that easily fooled. “You heard.”

He starts to laugh; he does that when he’s nervous. He will soon discover that when Ana gets nervous, she makes sarcastic jokes instead. If they spend their whole lives together, they might become the least suitable couple to encounter at a funeral: one who can’t stop making jokes and one who can’t stop giggling.

Vidar falls head over heels for her, because he’s the type who doesn’t know how to stop himself."

"Most of us don’t know what terrible things we’re capable of. How can we, until someone pushes us far enough? Who has any idea how dangerous we can be until someone threatens our family?"

"Benji is avoiding eye contact. “Are you disappointed in me, too?”

Ramona starts to laugh, coughing up smoke. “Me? Because you want to sleep with men? You sweet boy, I’ve always been very fond of you. I wish you a happy life. So I can only lament the fact that you want to sleep with men, because one thing I can tell you here and now is that it’s impossible to be happy with men. They’re nothing but a load of damn trouble!”"

"Why does anyone love team sports? Because we want to be part of a group? For some people the answer is simply that a team is a family. For anyone who needs an extra one or never had one in the first place."

"Love and hate. Joy and sorrow. Anger and forgiveness. Sports carry the promise that we can have everything tonight. Only sports can do that."

"At some point almost everyone makes a choice. Some of us don’t even notice it happening, most don’t get to plan it in advance, but there’s always a moment when we take one path instead of another that has consequences for the rest of our lives. It determines the people we will become, in other people’s eyes as well as our own. Elisabeth Zackell may have been right when she said that anyone who feels responsibility isn’t free. Because responsibility is a burden. Freedom is a pleasure."

"It’s only a hockey game. An ice rink packed with people, two locker rooms full of players, two teams facing each other. Two men in a basement. Why do we care about that sort of thing?

Perhaps because it clarifies all of our most difficult questions. What makes us shout out loud with joy? What makes us cry? What are our happiest memories, our worst days, our deepest disappointments? Who did we stand alongside? What’s a family? What’s a team?

How many times in life are we completely happy?

How many chances do we get to love something that’s almost pointless entirely unconditionally?"

"If he’d had a means of escape right then, he might well have taken it, but there’s only one way out of there. So who does he want to be? Everyone has moments when that’s decided. When we choose.

He wipes his face, unlocks the door, and steps back into the locker room. It’s the smallest of gestures, and all his teammates are still silent when he emerges, but when he gets back to his place, his shoes are full of shaving cream. Not just his. Everyone’s. Every pair of shoes under every bench. Because the men around him want him to know that he’s no different from anyone else. Not in here."

"Amat clears his throat. “You’ve showered with me, so you should be an expert. Am I sexy?”

Before Benji has time to answer, Amat grins. “I’m not asking for myself. I’m asking for my best friend.”

Beside him Bobo jerks as if someone had given him an electric shock. It’s a small thing for one young man to do for another one, but you can handle a lot of things in life if you have a best friend. Even more if you’re allowed to be someone else’s."

"Hockey is simple. It’s both the fairest and the most unfair sport in the world."

"There are so many things Bobo ought to have asked her. Death does that to us, it’s like a phone call, you always remember exactly what you should have said the moment you hang up. Now there’s just an answering machine full of memories at the other end, fragments of a voice that are getting weaker and weaker."

"It’s so easy to place your hope in people. To think that the world can change overnight. We demonstrate after an attack, we donate money after a disaster, we lay our hearts bare online. But for every step forward we take, we take an almost equally large step back. Seen over time, every change is so slow that it’s barely visible when it’s happening."

"All sports are fairy tales, that’s why we lose ourselves in them."

"When Benji opens his locker one morning, there are notes at the bottom, as usual. But one of them is different. Just one word: “Thanks.” The next day there’s another one, in different handwriting, saying “I told my sister I’m bisexual yesterday.” A few days later there’s a third note, again in different handwriting, which says, “I haven’t told anyone else, but when I do I’m not going to say I’m gay, I’m going to say I’m like you!” Then someone sends him an anonymous text: “Everyones talking about u they c u as a symbol I hope u know how important u are to all of us who darent say anything!!!!”

Just a few small notes and messages. Just words. Just anonymous voices who want him to know what he means now."

"When Beartown Ice Hockey plays its next game on the road, the rumors about Benji have reached that town, too. In every town he plays in from now on, there will be people who shout the most disgusting things they can think of to get him off balance. But Benji doesn’t give in, he just scores goals instead. The more they yell, the better he gets. After the game Bobo hugs him and exclaims happily, “If they hate you, you’re doing something right! You’re the best! They’d never hate you this much if you weren’t best!”

Benji tries to smile. Pretend it’s nothing. But he can’t quite stop himself from wondering how long he’s going to have to be the best. How long it’s going to take before anyone just lets him play."

"Sometimes you have to laugh at the crap, that’s how you make it bearable."

"He’s invincibly strong and unbelievably fragile at one and the same time. He reminds Maya a lot of Ana sometimes.

“Why should I forgive her? What she did to you was horrible!” she snaps.

“But you’re like sisters. And sisters forgive each other,” Benji manages to say.

Because he’s got sisters. Maya tilts her head and asks, “Have you forgiven Ana?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because people make mistakes, Maya.”"

"If Ana and Vidar had been an ordinary love story, perhaps they could have lived their whole lives together. Perhaps they would have gotten fed up with each other, broken up, or perhaps they would have kept on falling in love with the same person. An ordinary life is long if you live it together with someone else.

But the thing about being an unusual teenager is that sometimes you just want to be an ordinary teenager."

"Vidar and Ana’s fingertips nudge each other one last time. Theirs is no ordinary love story. They may have loved each other for a shorter time than many of us, but they’ve loved harder than most."

"The path back to normal life is indescribably long once death has swept the feet out from under those of us who are left. Grief is a wild animal that drags us so far out into the darkness that we can’t imagine ever getting home again. Ever laughing again. It hurts in such a way that you can never really figure out if it actually passes or if you just get used to it."

"It’s so easy to get people to hate one another. That’s what makes love so impossible to understand. Hate is so simple that it always ought to win. It’s an uneven fight."

"Life is a weird thing. We spend all our time trying to manage different aspects of it, yet we are still largely shaped by things that happen beyond our control."

"Benji stands outside the ice rink for a long time. He’s smoking in the shade of some trees, his feet deep in the snow. He’s played ice hockey his whole life, for so many different reasons, for so many different people’s sake. Some things demand our all, and choosing this sport is like choosing a classical instrument, it’s too difficult just to be a hobby. No one wakes up one morning and just happens to be a world-class violinist or pianist, and the same applies to hockey players: it takes a lifetime of obsession. It’s the sort of thing that can absorb your entire identity. In the end an eighteen-year-old man is left standing outside an ice rink thinking “Who can I be, if I’m not this?”"

"Hands him a piece of paper containing a brief handwritten text. “I got into music school. I’ll be moving in January. I don’t know if you’ll be back here before then, so I . . . I just wanted to give you this.”

While he reads it, she starts to walk back toward her mom’s car. When he’s finished, he calls after her, “MAYA!”

“WHAT?” she shouts back.

“DON’T LET THE BASTARDS SEE YOU CRY!”

She laughs with tears in her eyes. “NEVER, BENJI! NEVER!”

Perhaps they will never meet again, but she wrote all the biggest things she feels for him on that scrap of paper:

I wish you courage

I wish you rushing blood

A heart that beats too hard

Feelings that make everything too hard

Love that gets out of control

The most intense adventures

I hope you find your way out

I hope you’re the kind of person

Who gets a happy ending"

"Because it’s a simple game if you strip away all the crap surrounding it and just keep the things that made us love it in the first place.

Everyone gets a stick. Two nets. Two teams.

Us against you."

Did you notice that this review is shorter and it feels rushed? That's because it is, because I couldn't wait much longer to start reading The Winners, so I made this review in a hurry, sorry! But I have waited so long for The Winners already, so I hope you'll understand.

But now I'm having a panic attack again because this series is coming an end, as I only have one more book left to read. Please pray for my well being as I brace myself for the ending of all of my beloved characters. I will undoubtedly fall to pieces again. BUT I'M GONNA LOVE IT.

PLOT - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

WRITING STYLE - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

ENTERTAINMENT LEVEL- ❤️❤️❤️

BOOK COVER DESIGN - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL BOOK RATING - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#beartown trilogy #us against you #book reviews

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