138 ratings (3.91 avg)
34 reviews

Katie McNabb

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Katie is Currently Reading

Katie McNabb is currently reading

On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

by Carl R. Rogers

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Apr 20, 2026 01:36PM

Katie McNabb is currently reading

A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time #7)

by Robert Jordan

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(page 164 of 800)
— 10 hours, 35 min ago

Apr 11, 2026 12:01AM

Katie McNabb is currently reading

Beartown (Beartown, #1)

by Fredrik Backman (Goodreads Author)

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in February 2021

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Katie McNabb said: " This book made me cry four times, and I almost never cry while reading so that certainly says something about its quality. In an attempt to avoid spoilers, I will refer to a key part of this book as things like "the traumatic event" or "the situatio This book made me cry four times, and I almost never cry while reading so that certainly says something about its quality. In an attempt to avoid spoilers, I will refer to a key part of this book as things like "the traumatic event" or "the situation". It's a bit ironic that I have to do this since many of the characters in the book make a point of saying that they shouldn't avoid naming what happened, but unfortunately it's what I have to do to remain spoiler-free. I do, however, think that you should probably look up the trigger warnings for this book before reading it because a lot of people will want to know what the "event" is before reading. Anyways, let's get on with the review...

First of all, there was an incredible cast of characters to connect to in this book. I was attached enough to smile and laugh at the moments where these characters succeeded or had heartwarming moments with one another, while also verbally expressing my anger and frustration when they acted selfishly and horribly. I genuinely cared about the people in this story, and that only made the content of the book even more heartbreaking. I was consistently having to shut the book and set it down to take a breath and gather myself because of how heavy some of this stuff was. A few times I even closed it and gave it a brief hug because it was the closest I could get to hugging the characters, who certainly were in need of it. There were characters I loved very much, and characters who made me so angry that sometimes I struggled to continue reading. As well as the characters, the plot of this book was also extremely intriguing. Throughout the entire book, I was constantly eager to see what would happen next, and the plot almost always felt honest and realistic.

I really only have a few minor issues with this book which kept it from getting the full five stars. One of those just comes with the territory of how Backman decided to tackle this story, which was to focus on how the horrific event that occurs impacted all of these characters' lives, instead of just those who were directly involved in it. As much as I found it interesting to see how all of these different people handled the situation, I constantly found myself wishing we could go back to looking at a few key characters' perspectives because I was just so concerned with them and how they were doing. I felt like the story didn't focus on these specific characters quite enough, and often times how they processed certain events felt a little too rushed. I understand that Backman was more focused on showing how an entire group of very different people in a small town would react to this kind of thing, but just the nature of the traumatic event that occurs in this book causes me to instantly want to see a lot more of some characters and not so much of others. There were also a few times where I felt like some of the characters' actions were a bit over-dramatized to the point of being unrealistic, especially for some of the characters' age group. I would've rather seen more of the grounded and meaningful conversations between some of the characters about the trauma that they had endured and less of the rash and dangerous actions that felt very out of character for some of these people.

All in all, I really loved this book. It made me feel a lot of very different and very strong emotions, which is a huge accomplishment for any book because that doesn't happen to me often while reading. I loved and hated the characters just as much as I think Backman intended the reader to, and I cared very deeply about what happened to them. There were a few small things that I wish Backman would have done differently, but for the most part, I think he did a fantastic job telling this story. I would certainly recommend this book to almost anyone, but again, definitely check out the trigger warnings first if it's something you're concerned about! ...more "

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(page 0 of 432)
"Time for a reread" — Apr 06, 2026 07:14AM

Apr 02, 2021 11:10PM · see review