Beartown

In the remote, wintry town of Beartown, hockey is everything. The junior team is heading to the national semi-finals, and with it rides the town’s hope for revival. For the teenage boys on the team—Kevin, Amat, Benji, and others—the pressure is immense, their victory seen as a promise of a better future for everyone.

But when a shocking act of violence shatters the celebrations, the community is forced to confront truths it would rather ignore. Loyalties split, silence becomes complicity, and the town’s deep-seated values are tested. In the aftermath, friends, families, and neighbors must decide what they’re willing to stand for—and what they're willing to lose.

With unflinching honesty and emotional precision, Fredrik Backman delivers a powerful portrait of a town in crisis. Beartown is not just a story about hockey—it’s about how communities bind together and break apart, how silence can wound, and how courage can emerge in unexpected ways.