Published: January 2022
Pages: 671
Series: Beartown #3
Summary
Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. The residents continue to grapple with life’s big questions: What is a family? What is a community? And what, if anything, are we willing to sacrifice in order to protect them?
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.
So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?
My thoughts
This is a devastating book. The end of the trilogy and a book that has weighed very heavily on my heart.
“This hurts too much to touch with words.”
The bigger, hard-hitting bits of this book we knew were coming. We get hints in Beartown and by the end of Us Against You we know what’s coming. It doesn’t make it any easier. Reading this was a ticking time bomb, what’s going to happen.. WHEN is it going to happen? Why?
My heart was aching for Benji, that poor boy. So much to deal with from such an early age it all was too much. The juxtaposition of Benji against Maya or Anna really brought to life the different paths people can take when dealing with difficult, traumatic events. Some turn to drink and drugs, some get lost, some find solace in each other, there are different responses to events like this and this series highlights many of them very, very well.
Because he was always the sort of person who stood in the way, the sort who protected, the sort who ran. He always thought he was the bad guy in all stories, the real heroes always do, that’s why stories about boys like him never end with them growing old.
My only criticism of this book was the first chunk is rather slow (compared to book two – I read this series one after another). But it is like that for a reason. There is a lot of positioning, new characters, new relationships and in the usual Backman fashion, there is a lot of tension to sow. So many different things going on at once it was a bit tricky to keep track of it all but it is woven together seamlessly. The layering of storytelling is what gives a lot of this books big moments such impact. The scale of these small stories are far reaching and you don’t always see the ripple effect it has on people and what that could build up to.
He has seen good people capable of great evil, but also evil people capable of incredible light. It’s the same everywhere. Almost everybody loves too much, hates too easily, forgives too little. But most people want the same things: to live in peace, to make their hearts beat a little slower when the night comes, to earn some money to support the ones they love.
I was glad to see Leo be pulled out of his poor decisions. He was leading himself down a bad path mixing with characters and getting involved in things that could ruin his future. More than that I was happy to see the life creep back into the Andersson family. Slowly but it was there.
“We fool ourselves that we can protect the people we love, because if we accepted the truth we’d never let them out of our sight.”
It’s been a month since I read this book and only now can I find the words to put my thoughts down. One of the feelings this book left me with, even a month later, was what I can best describe as a gut punch. This book has it’s highs, there is peace and happiness, glimpses of kids being kids without a worry or concern for what’s next. The way it should be at that age, the way moat parents want their kids feeling. But there are moments where it turns quickly, so fast you never saw it coming and you’re left gasping because everything was alright. Finally, everything was alright!
The gut punch on many occasions has stayed with me.
I was getting concerned for how to end a series like this and how to do it justice given the difficult topics at play. I shouldn’t have worried because Backman had it all sorted from the very first book. Looking back on this series the entire story is woven across every book. Whispers in book one become avalanches in the third. I can see the thought that has went into telling this story. This is not 3 stories, but one that needed three books to tell it fully.
“If nobody knows who you are, you can be whoever you want to be.”
At the end we do get to see where characters are and how they used their time, what they did with it, what direction they took their life in. We see some finalities but we also see many beginnings. Everything get’s looped back together again. But its not just at the end. Throughout the chapters Backman gives us little nuggets of the future embedded within the story. A certain characters love story was so beautiful that as we read the moments they meet and the dates they start to have, Backman reassures us that their love makes the time and distance. These little splashes of romance and hope help cast some light on the otherwise darkness of the story.
Falling in love with a place and falling in love with a person are related adventures. At first we run around street corners giggling and explore every inch of each other’s skin, over the years we get to know every cobblestone and strand of hair and snore, and the waters of time soften our passion into unfailing love, and in the end the eyes we wake up next to and the horizon outside our window are the same thing: home.
My other thought which has stayed with me is that there are two towns but there is so much good amongst them. It’s not all us versus them, there are some bad eggs on both sides but there is plenty more good.
“Our children never warn us that they’re thinking of growing up, one day they’re just too big to want to hold our hand, it’s just as well we never know when the last time is going to be or we’d never let go.”
Would I recommend?
YEEEEESSS. Read this trilogy please, I beg of you, give it a try and let me know what you think! I need to talk to someone about this story so desperately!