It's hard for a sequel to compare to the pure joy of the first in a series...
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The Blurb:
Can a broken town survive a second tragedy?
Beartown is dying . . . Tucked in a forest in the frozen north, Beartown's residents are tough and hardworking. They don't expect life to be easy, but they do expect it to be fair. Which is why the sudden loss of their hockey players to the rival town of Hed hurts. Everyone needs something to cheer for in the long winter nights. Now they have nothing.
So when a new star player arrives, Coach Peter sees an opportunity to rebuild the team - to take on Hed and restore Beartown's fortunes. But not everyone in town sees it his way. As the big game between both towns approaches, the rivalry turns bitter and all too real. Once the stands rumbled with threats to 'kill' and 'ruin' each other, but the residents didn't mean it. Now they do. By the time the last goal is scored, someone in Beartown will be dead . . .
Us Against You is the story of two towns, two teams and what it means to believe in something bigger than yourself. It's about how people come together - sometimes in anger, often in sorrow, but also through love. And how, when we stand together, we can bring a town back to life.
The Review
First thing to note - this is the sequel to Backman's 'Beartown' - which you can read my review of here.
If you can't be bothered - I'll summarise for you - I loved it. Beartown was so unexpected and so wonderful.
However - as part of that review, I said this:
"There were a few moments that were maybe, just slightly, perhaps dare I say it..... the tiniest bit cheesy?? Just in those scenarios where Backman builds you up to believe that the character is going to do the expected thing, and then they go and do the opposite - the heroic thing. It just felt ripe for some uplifting saccharine Hollywood soundtrack to start playing over the top. But perhaps that's just my cold, dead, cynical heart talking again."
So, I loved 'Us Against You' for the same reasons I loved 'Beartown'; important themes, a strong moral backbone and beautifully written.
But the things that slightly bugged me about 'Beartown' were massively amplified in this sequel. The constant foreshadowing 'teasers' started to annoy me a bit and I found it a lot cheesier. This wasn't helped that in my opinion, the plot didn't have the same power that 'Beartown' had. There isn't really the same big momentous event that we experience in 'Beartown'. It's more about the fallout of what happened in the first book and I wasn't convinced there was enough there to keep me utterly captivated.
Backman also doesn't assume that you've taken the trouble to read Beartown and therefore a lot of time and effort has to be taken to tell a new reader who all the characters are and what happened in the first book. With the best will in the world, that was always going to feel a bit clumsy for readers already in the know.
Having said all that - he is still a superb writer and if you utterly loved 'Beartown' you are likely to be a big fan of this too. No one can deny that his books are beautifully crafted and they have an important message to get across. Also, I was really keen to see what happened with the characters I fell in love with in the first book, so it was gratifying to pick up their strands again. (despite not really appreciating the new characters as much.) I'm just not sure that if there is space in my life for a potential third in this series?
Thanks to the Publisher and Netgalley for this preview copy in return for an honest review.
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