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.
Comment: Last year, I've read the first book in this Beartown trilogy and I liked it quite a lot. I've been waiting for the other books to also be available in paperback and now that the third is finally on its way, I've read this second one so not much longer passes between this and the last book.
In this second installment, the events start pretty much right after what happened at the end of the other book. Everyone in Beartown is still debating and processing what happened and Maya and her friend Ana are spending the summer camping and being alone. But there will be changes, something politician Richard Theo wants to use to his advantage, making him do things behind everyone's back but making it seem he is just someone helping.... One thing which is inescapable is that Kevin and his mother leave, his father leaves alone and now most players who were with Kevin are now in Hed. The animosity between the two towns reaches incredible levels, but in the end, what is the price of identity? Will the actions of some people in Beartown and some people in Hed have any kind of repercussion which all cannot escape from?
In this book, some of the characteristics I've loved in the first book now seemed a bit more negatively glaring and I must confess I wasn't as dazzled by the overall effect. I'm particularly thinking about the writing style, told in a sequence of short sentences, more like ideas or thoughts instead of an actual linear sequence. This was one aspect I found amazing in the first book and now felt a bit too repetitive and simplistic. There were a few situations I wish had been developed more but this writing style isn't conductive to it.
Even having this in mind, however, I liked reading the book and seeing what would happen. The first book is mainly focused on a big plot event and many secondary things before and after. Now we have this second book, which is clearly a transition one since there is a third but thinking of what happens here, I have to wonder if the author hadn't planned things to be divided into only two books? The way this book ends makes it very, very easy indeed to imagine it would happen this way and not having more would not be seen as a bad thing.
Since there is a third book, and knowing the author has this habit of leading up situations to a certain point which feels obvious and then isn't, I surely hope certain details here will have a turn around in the final installment and I hope it will be in a happier tone than this one, which was more focused on the negative repercussions and not so good choices some characters made. I'm especially thinking about certain characters whose emotions and decisions here had center stage and I hope to see more of them, namely Maya, Benji and Peter, all in different stages of their lives, with specific features I'm interested in seeing how the author develops/improves.
The big focus in this book is still the hockey situation and how teams now must deal with what happened. I don't mind the sport conversations and the clear rivalry between Hed and Beartown but I must say it can get on one's nerves how so much is set on this, instead of us seeing how the personal lives of the characters truly are affected, I would have liked more about them individually (and on their emotional development) instead of what it means for the group mentality.
For instance, Maya is still delaying with what happened to her and I wish we see more about her therapy and improvement instead of how she copes and how she is being mistreated by others. Benji is gay and here he has a one night stand with someone who turns out to be a surprise and this is barely exploited. It felt as if the author is only adding ideas and we can imagine whatever we want, then something happens and we must color any knowledge under those things, often very radically presented.... I mean, this isn't too bad, true and is quite innovative writing for the type of story but I would have preferred more actual interactions between characters (and more positive ones at that)!
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