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Have you ever seen a town fall? Ours did. We’ll end up saying that violence came to Beartown this summer, but that will be a lie. The violence was already here. Because sometimes hating one another is so easy that it seems incomprehensible that we ever do anything else.

These are the opening words of Fredrik Backman’s Us Against You , the sequel to Beartown . It is true that this second novel tells of violence and hatred. But that is not the whole story. Far from it.

Us Against You picks up where Beartown left off. We see a town battling to recover from a traumatic experience, the rape of a teenage girl by a star athlete. This could be anywhere, any small community. Blame the victim. Blame her family. Some shame the male, yes, but that still makes the girl a “slut� who is now responsible for destroying his life, for destroying the team.

We see a hockey program on the brink of extinction. Hockey, which is the lifeblood of Beartown. Backman follows each of the individuals involved in this saga. We see Peter Andersson, the general manager of the hockey club, whose whole life has been hockey. His family. Oh! His family! His wife Kira, a gifted lawyer who sacrifices so much of her own potential so that Peter can have his hockey life. Twelve-year-old son Leo, who is seeking his own identity and sixteen-year-old Maya, who struggles daily with the aftermath of the rape.

We see their friends, Benji, Bobo, Amat, Vidar, Ana. Each with his and her own problems, issues, and gifts. The town “hooligans� called The Pack. And then there are the folks from Hed, their despised rivals. To muck things up even more, there is a politician who promises to help fix everything.

Initially, I felt that the narrative was very choppy, but I could see the purpose of it. The author lays the groundwork by showing each person’s actions as the story progresses. We see the pressure build as relationships begin to unravel. It made me sad to see, but I wasn’t sure if it would all end badly. There are surprises, good and bad. There are unexpected alliances. Who will step up? Who will falter? Who will survive the challenges of sport, of relationships, of self-identity � of life?

Oh, yes, there is plenty of hatred in Us Against You . There is violence too. But there is perseverance. There is resilience. There is loyalty. There is love. There were times when I clenched my head in my hands and squeezed my eyes shut at what was coming next. There were times when I was brought to tears. There were also moments of goosebumps. Backman writes as if he has lived every moment of this story, and he made me feel as if I were part of it. Bang!

Who is “us�? Who is “you�? There are several answers. Read this book! It is wonderful on so many levels. (I do recommend reading Beartown first.)

5 stars