Beartown: A Novel Audiobook

Quotes

• “With chameleonlike fluidity, narrator Marin Ireland embodies the unique residents, from posturing youth to jaded hockey coaches. She expertly conveys the layers of the characters’ fear and anger as they desperately search for answers. Ireland’s low-pitched rasp communicates the unforgiving landscape of  Beartown, which teeters on the brink of disaster.”

  — Library Journal (audio review)

• "[A] slow burn of a novel about a community that pours all its hopes into a youth hockey team. Think Friday Night Lights for Swedes.”

  — O, The Oprah Magazine

• “The residents of Beartown place all their hopes on their ice hockey team, but a player’s violent crime threatens to tear the town apart.”

  — BookPage

• “A sobering and solemn look at the ways alienation and acceptance, ethics and emotions nearly destroy a small town and young people.”

  — Booklist

• “Lest readers think hockey is the star here, it’s Backman’s rich characters that steal the show, and his deft handling of tragedy and its effects on an insular town.”

  — Publishers Weekly

• Part coming-of-age novel, part study of moral failure, and finally a chronicle of groupthink in which an unlikely hero steps forward to save more than one person from self-destruction. A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman’s latest will resonate a long time.”

  — Kirkus Reviews