Fredrik Backman tears me apart and stitches me back together just enough to hold on until I can get hold of another of his books.

Ostensibly, this is a book about hockey. Which is only a game, after all.

But, as Backman reminds us over and over throughout the book, hockey is so much more than what can be seen on the surface.

This is a book about striving in a town that has lost its way. Every character is struggling with how they fit into the puzzle that is Beartown, and every single story is a beautiful picture of humanity ( Virginia Ronan's review contains an incredible list of characters with relevant quotations).

I can't even summarize this book because it's not wonderful for its plot. Sure, when a book opens by telling you that this is the story of how one teenager put a gun to the forehead of another teenager and pulled the trigger, it makes you want to learn more, but even still, it's not what makes this book what it is. As evidence, just reading the standalone quotations from other reviews is giving me chills.

Also, I have to give tremendous props to Neil Smith for his incredible translation. I don't speak any Swedish, but that this book is so profound is such a testament to his skill with language.