Love Backman's work in that he is so quotable. It makes you want to annotate the whole book. I don't think the story was as compelling as Beartown but looking forward to seeing where it goes next.

As a follow up to Bear Town, I was expecting a lot from this book.

However, as much as I enjoyed it, the settings and people, I was slightly disappointed with it.

I was enthralled to return to Bear Town, and revisit the cast of believable characters to see how they are dealing with the repercussions of the shocking events of the first novel. A moving and compassionate book from a great storyteller

This is the follow up to Beartown and follows on immediately. Once again we meet the incredible characters and follow their stories.

It saddens me to give this 3*
But I just struggled with this.

I loved going back to BearTown.
I didn’t enjoy the repetitive sentences.

I wanted to see what happened next in BearTown.
I did.
And as we know, the Town is dedicated and know for its hockey. So we have problems among that.

As I said in my review on book 1 I didn’t feel I had to know everything about hockey to enjoy it.

This one I did though.

Plus I just couldn’t stomach that their was no consequences for what went on in book 1!

I finished it.

But something was lacking for me personally.

Jojo Moyes......Me Before You I absolutely loved!
Then she brought out book 2
It went downhill for me from there on.

Similar feelings to this. I should have left it at BearTown book 1.

I won’t be reading the third book. I feel sad saying that because I enjoy this authors writing

Beartown is still struggling to deal with the fallout of the town's rising hockey star being accused of sexual assault by the daughter of the club's general manager. Now Kevin has left town for good, but for Maya she is still struggling to survive in a town that's been torn apart from either believing her, or accusing her of lying. Peter Anderson doesn't know how to stop his family from falling apart while at the same time, his club is also crumbling to dust - and Benji, the town's delinquent son/purest heart is helping others while keeping the biggest secret in his life close to his chest. By the end of the hockey season, someone will be dead and the sporting violence between Beartown and neighbouring Hed will have come to a terrible conclusion.

I love Fredrik Backman's writing - his characters are so full of life in a way I find it hard to see other authors really achieving, and he has a truly unique style to his writing that comes across perfectly even when translated which I think is a feat in itself. Like all his stories, Us Against You is full of self-deprecating humour and wonderful moments between people, while also highlighting the true ugliness in the world against the moments of beauty and hope. While Beartown deals with a heavy topic, I actually as a reader found Us Against You a heavier, harder book to read. I'm not sure I 100% enjoyed myself while reading this and I wonder if "enjoyed" is even the right word for the consumption of a book like this.

In a way I almost felt emotionally manipulated in this book as my feelings were on strings about to snap at any moment throughout the novel. I was so scared for every character even though for some we knew what lay ahead but with others we weren't so sure. I never knew if Leo, Benji or Ana was about to be hurt or something terrible happen. I was afraid for Sune and Peter and even Teemu (who if you're not picturing as Wentworth Miller, what's wrong with you?). The book is written really cleverly because you know enough to be really invested but never enough to feel like you won't be surprised by the next chapter. We might know that a character achieves his dream of becoming an NHL professional, but that doesn't mean we know the struggles of how he got there and the bumps in the road that made him stronger.

Once again, Fredrik Backman proves he can play my emotional strings like an expert fiddler and I'm happy to hand my reader's heart over to him any time!

Backman has done it again! I loved Beartown so much, so it was great to hear more tales from the Swedish town where ice hockey is not just a sport, but an obsession. I’d recommend reading book one before this, or else you’re missing so much! In Us against You, we find the town’s hockey team in jeopardy, as a manipulative politician decides he’s going to pit the town’s biggest forces against one another in order to make a name for himself. All our favourite characters are still there but this time the emphasis is more about the future of the town and it’s inhabitants. The journey is an emotional one but there’s hope and strength. Enjoy!

Sometimes a book comes along that just blows you away with its searing honesty and fabulous prose and this book really did that for me. There was literally a line on each page that just leapt out and smacked me between the eyes with its brilliance. Both the writing and the translation are absolutely breathtaking and I loved the interplay between all of the different factions within the town. You just feel so deeply for all of these characters and read with a sense of dread that something bad will happen to one of them. Backman is a master of foreshadowing and I just absolutely loved this book. Everyone should read it!
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

In brief:
- Great writing
- Warning for self-harm
- Full of blunt truths
- Looks at how people aren't perfect and often make wrong decisions
- Very suspenseful
- Emotional

Us Against You is the sequel to Beartown, a mystery and a fable set in a snowy Scandinavian small town where ice hockey dominates the lives of its inhabitants. Told from the viewpoint of an unnamed narrator this is a literary thriller that will keep the reader thinking.

I received this as an ARC in return for an honest review

I didn’t find this book easy to read to be honest I admit I have not read Beartown which may have had a bearing on this story

It all centres around hockey and some characters with just weird lifestyles

I found it quite confusing there are so many characters none of which you really can gel with as the book flits all over the place back and forth and then all of a sudden another new character turns up

I am always honest in my reviews and this is the first time I’ve ever given such a negative rating on something sent to me by Netgalley

Sorry but not my cup of tea

A very unusual book, in a writing style I hadn't come across previously. Nevertheless, I found the story totally absorbing and compelling. Fredrik Backman, (I have A Man Called Ove in my library but haven't read it yet), has a fascinating sociological insight. The study of each character was totally credible, I genuinely felt as if I could go to Beartown and meet The Andersons, Benji and his sisters, The (non-existent) Pack. I shed tears as I finished, not solely because it was over, although I knew I would miss the characters I now thought of as friends. The sheer, undiluted beauty of writing, the elegant phrasing and the poignancy of words had moved me deeply. Us Against You is an exquisitely written story that will stay with me for a long time to come, a unique and emotional book I highly recommend to everyone.

I chose to read Us Against You because I enjoyed Fredrik Backman’s previous book Beartown. If you haven’t already read it then I suggest you read it before reading this book. You don’t have to read it, but it certainly helps.

I was given this book to read for review many months ago, but time slipped away from me because of looking after my new-born. However, this weekend I had some time to myself and I devoured this book.

WARNING This review contains some spoilers.

Reading Us Against You made me experience a whole range of emotions; I laughed, I cried and there were many times where I seethed with anger. At no point did I feel like it was just a book. It was one of those books that absorbs you to the point where whilst reading it you are a citizen of Beartown.

The citizens of Beartown are still reeling over ‘the scandal’ of the star hockey player Kevin raping the general manager’s daughter Maya. When it happened, the town divided, and many chose to take Kevin’s side after all hockey equals life for many in the town.

Many of Kevin’s friends chose to move to Hed Hockey club with him. Now the truth is out how have those who sided with Kevin reacted?

Beartown hockey club is in trouble, the old divisions remain, and more secrets are about to come out.

“Have you ever seen a town fall? Ours did. We’ll end up saying that violence came to Beartown this summer, but that will be a lie, the violence was already here. Because sometimes hating one another is so easy that it seems incomprehensible that we ever do anything else.”

Backman’s writing style makes you feel as though you in conversation with someone who was witness to the events and carries the emotions with them for good or for bad, who makes you wonder what you would do in a similar situation.

“Sometimes good people do terrible things in the belief that they’re trying to protect what they love. A boy, the star of the hockey team, raped a girl. And we lost our way. A community is the sum of its choices and when two of our children said different things, we believed him. Because that was easier, because if the girl was lying we could carry on as usual. When we found out the truth, we fell apart taking the town with us. It’s easier to say we should have done everything differently, but perhaps you wouldn’t have acted differently, either. If you’d been afraid, if you’d been forced to pick a side. If you’d known what you had to sacrifice. Perhaps you wouldn’t be as afraid as you’d think. Perhaps you’re not as different from us as you hope.”

Us Against You is about the aftermath of a scandal, about community, family, friendship and sport. It’s about masculinity and femininity and what it means when you can’t follow the rules society sets out for you.

Backman prepares the reader for the worst very early on in the book, he warns what it is to come but if you are anything like me you will become so absorbed in the story that you forget his warning.

“We will say it was a traffic accident, but accidents happen by chance, and we will know that we could have prevented this one. This one will be someone’s fault.

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

One of the things about the aftermath of the events of the last book was the way both Kira and Peter blamed themselves and felt they should have or could have done something more to prevent it but also how Kevin’s mother felt she had done something wrong too.

I enjoyed all of the characters in this book but two of the characters that stood out the most for me were Benji and Leo.

Leo struggles from the beginning with feelings he should have done something to protect his sister even though he is only twelve.

“His friends have still started to tell him that he ‘ought to do something,’ That one of those bastards ‘needs to be punished.’ That he ‘has to be a man.’ Masculinity is complicated when you’re twelve. And at every other age, too.”

One of the hardest hitting quotes for me from the book was this:

“She wasn’t raped, she’s still being raped. For Kevin it lasts a matter of minutes but for her it never ends.”

This book gives you a lot to think about for long after it finishes.

“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.”
― Fredrik Backman, Us Against You

It feels as if it took me FOREVER to finish this book, but it wasn't because I didn't like it. It's just a heavy sort of book, and though it is written in the same vein as Backman's other books (all of which I loved), I somehow felt this was so melancholy that I couldn't read too much of it at a time. At the same time, Backman imbues the book with a sense of undying hopefulness and it is this and his beautiful observations about human nature which make it another memorable read for me. Recommended!

A brilliant story that picks up from where the last story left off, this ice hockey town Beartown is on the brink of losing everything including its much beloved ice hockey team. Fredrik Backman tells another brilliant and emotional story that leaves you wanting to keep reading to find out what this story has in store for you.

If I could give this more than 5 stars, I really would. I feel as though someone has sucker-punched me. I’m not usually someone who cries over a book: I get emotional, yes, but actual crying is something I seldom do. This book, though. I couldn’t tell you how many times it brought me to tears. The characters are so vulnerable - even those who you wouldn’t expect to be.
There’s a lot of ice hockey: not a sport we see much of here in the U.K., but it’s done in a particular way that I didn’t feel it was a story about sport.
“Have you ever seen a town fall? Ours did. We’ll end up saying that violence came to Beartown this summer, but that will be a lie; the violence was already here. Because sometimes hating one another is so easy that it seems incomprehensible that we ever do anything else.”
This is a story about human nature: all the good, bad and messy bits. And I loved it. Five stars for me means I would read it again, and I probably will.
Many, many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this wonderful book.

The sequel to the much loved Beartown. Gut wrenching and such vivid language that you are right there with the characters. Great book, highly recommend

Ive loved everything Fredrik Backman has written and this one is no different. This book had the usual in depth characters you expect to meet and brilliant narrative. Somehow the author makes every character believable and I’ve probably met a few of them along the way. I’ll definitely recommend to fellow Backman fans and newbies alike.

Felt a bit like I'd been punched in the gut after finishing this book. It left me breathless - I care so much for Backman's amazing characters. It's astonishing how he creates such three-dimensional characters, who all have good and bad qualities, so that it is impossible to not feel a level of respect from even the most awful actions that they take.

A stunning sequel to The Scandal - Fredrik Backman never disappoints.

The feeling of being in a small town where one sport means everything to everyone within it for one reason or another ripples through the pages, touching each character and fuelling various relationship fires.

Beautifully written, with characters that are both real and emotionally engaging. one of my favourite reads of the year!