Welcome to BookCrossing!

Thank you for picking up this book. If you’re new to BookCrossing and find this book and this site (www.bookcrossing.com), please make a journal entry to let me know that this book has found a good home with you. You may choose to remain anonymous or to join.

I hope you'll join BookCrossing (doesn't cost anything to join!) and if you do, please consider using me, earthcaroleanne, as your referring member. When you’ve finished reading this book and are ready to send it on its way again, make a journal entry if you are giving or sending this book to a known person, or a release note if you are leaving it “in the wild” again for anyone to catch. Then watch its journey. You’ll be alerted by e mail each time someone makes another journal entry. And it’s confidential (you are known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address), free, and spam-free.

Enjoy the site, the book and hopefully the BookCrossing community. If you’re already a BookCrossing member, thank you for picking up this book.

Happy BookCrossings!

Beartown is a small town in a large forest. For most of the year it is under a thick blanket of snow, experiencing the kind of cold and dark that brings people closer together - or pulls them apart. Its isolation means that Beartown has been slowly shrinking with each passing year. But now the town is on the verge of an astonishing revival. A bright new future is just around the corner. Until the day it is all put in jeopardy by a single, brutal act. It divides the town into those who think it should be hushed up and forgotten and those who'll risk the future to see justice done. At last, it falls to one young person to find the courage to speak the truth that it seems no one else wants to hear. With the town's future at stake, no one can stand by or stay silent. Everyone is on one side or the other. Which side would you be on?

This had me at Chapter One - I needed to know what happened. It does take a little time to get used to the hockey obsession, but this really is a book of two halves. The first half moves at a very slow pace introducing us to the cast of characters and in particular to the game of hockey that is central to Beartown. The second half moves at a faster pace but you realise that the slow introduction was necessary to help you understand the aftermath of The Incident. I though the author handled the tricky scenes very sensitively and accurately. However, I honestly could not understand the violent pack like mentality. I would have packed up and ran out of there as fast as my legs could carry me.

I read this while there was a similar story actually happening in the US with a Stanford student who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman.
"Turner’s status as an elite, white young athlete at a prestigious university also factored into Perksy’s (the judge's) decision to be lenient."

Adding this to Poodlesister's uncon/birthday package.

Thanks for the books, the artisan chocolate from Falkirk, the lovely cat greetings cards and the Charles Mackesy Books are my Bag Tote which you went to so much trouble to find for me.

A beautifully written/translated story of toxic masculinity and sport. There are so many parallels with what is happening and has happened in this country and in many countries. Very powerful and moving.

A wishlist tag book going to Cross-Patch.

Join UK Bookcrossers at the Newcastle Unconvention from 1st-3rd October 2021

I’ve been wanting to read this for an age! Thank you. It will have a high priority among the have-to reads.

I found this to be a very powerful representation of small town claustrophobic sexist behaviour, with hierarchical structures and petty cruelties. The only character that wasn’t fully drawn was Kevin, as most of his actions and manners were skirted around, I suppose because everybody else took responsibility for him. Glad I got to read it. Thanks to all before me.

Passing to a friend to read and release.