The Winners: A Novel (Beartown Series) Hardcover – September 27, 2022

“But you can never fool dogs. They know all that’s best in you.”Ahhh I was putting this one off as I did not want to be done with this series, but I finally read it and was not disappointed. Backman cannot do any wrong in my opinion, and his finale to the Beartown series was absolute perfection, all 670 pages of it. It is hard to review this and do the book justice, but know that this and the other two in this series is about more than hockey, it is about community and what the town will do to protect it. The audio was exquisite, it was wonderful to listen to as it was read by one of my favorites, Marin Ireland, and she did an excellent job as always. If you have not read this series you should, and I will be thinking of this one for a long time to come.Thank you to Simon Audio for the ALC to review.

Fredrick Backman has not become an autoread author for me. This is truly one of my favorite series of all time and I will scream from the mountain tops that everyone should read this. This final book in the series was perfection. Oh Benji - you are one of my all time favorite book characters!

Fans of the BEARTOWN trilogy were looking forward to seeing what happened to Benji, Maya, Peter and Kira Anderson, Ana, Maya’s best friend and Amat.What we got were even more characters and a rather choppy read. When on stage, none of them got to go any kind of distance without being interrupted. This being said, the book had its moments, especially when Ana was featured. There’s a terrible wind storm in the forest; a man and his pregnant wife are trying to make it to the hospital when they’re stymied by fallen trees. A new character, Hannah, a midwife, is called upon to rescue the mother and the baby. The only way for her to get there is for Ana to drive her. Ana knows the forest better than anybody except for her father who’s too drunk to drive. As Hannah says, Ana is the type of person who runs toward the fire. Another touching moment happens toward the end of the book when Ana gives Hannah a mother’s day card. Ana never had a mother, but she made mother’s day cards with her fellow students, and she gives one to Hannah as thanks for being the mother she never had.The climax of the story is another rape, and once again the girl, Ruth, isn’t believed. She leaves the forest only to die of a drug overdose, but her brother Matteo never forgets what happened to her and the boy who did it. He wants revenge.Readers will remember the little girl Sune, the A-team coach, was teaching to play hockey. Alicia forms a relationship with Benji, one of the mainstays from the first two books, when Sune’s dog is poisoned. They go to the hockey arena and he teaches her how to deal with stress. She will go on to be a national team super star. Benji and Alicia become implicated in the climax when Matteo seeks revenge.There is another sub plot dealing with an editor in chief on the Hed newspaper who discovers all kinds of shady goings on the hockey team that implicate Peter Anderson. Tails, the owner of the supermarket, is the real culprit there. Backman is a master of bringing so-called villains back from the depths. Tails proves he has a conscience, and a character named Lev whom we meet in connection with Amat’s attempt to get drafted into the NHL also proves to be misunderstood. Lev tries to make money by charging the various clubs for an interview with Amat. Amat isn’t drafted. Later Lev, who owns a junkyard near Hed, tries to stop Matteo when he finds out he has a gun.Backman also has a penchant for foreshadowing. For instance we know who’s going to get killed during the Matteo climax. Rather than provide an epilogue to give us info on what happens to the major characters and some of the minor ones, Backman intrudes on the ending and simply tells us. This will be the last Beartown novel, and he tries to fill in all the gaps, but a few characters, like Big City, just disappear.

What a great way to end the series!!! Upon arrival of the book, I was already overwhelmed by the size of it lol. Although the story was long, it was everything we needed in the trilogy and more.The characters we all loved all came full circle, we even saw new ones in this last book. Each and every character is described in such detail that you just feel like you know them personally, as if the author knows how to reach our souls. Each of the characters stories are unique and touching. I knew the ending would be sad, but still was caught off guard. The book was touching and heartfelt, the end had me feeling so emotional, even shed a tear.The authors way of describing just about anything is so amazing! I truly love his style of writing. I can't wait for his next book/series to release. A must read.

This is the 3rd book in the series and is rather similar to the other two. Backman writes very well. There are many characters, good people and not so good people. Two close-by towns in the forest where hockey reigns supreme. Many sub-plots that are all concluded. Worth reading because all seem to be real people. Shed many tears. Read it!

I fell in love with Beartown when I read it. Never has a book hooked me with one sentence the way that one did. If you haven’t read this series, please at least read the first book. It’s wonderful. And you would definitely need to read that before this one!This book is the final chapter in the Beartown story. It’s about community, family, tragedy, scandal, relationships and so much more. It was good but very long and not quite as captivating as the original. The ending was a crazy mix of sadness and happiness and the closing of a chapter. I may have even shed a few tears saying goodbye to my friends from Beartown.

Thanks, Fredrik, for continuing to break my heart while simultaneously writing such good stories.

The story is interesting enough if you like hockey. I don’t, and that was one reason only three stars. Also, every character redundantly is telling the same episode of a situation. That’s where I skipped the most pages. I have heard raving over the book; so whatever floats your boat.

Thank you for such a passionate insightful journey to human behaviour. A wonderful story where I became a resident of Beartown. I met characters I'll remember for some time. I learnt something about myself as well.

I really enjoy Backman's story telling. His characters are many and varied which means I need to read slowly to learn about them in the beginning. In this book, two small towns are very competitive and every action seems to relate to ice hockey. As a non-sporting person , I found this really hard to understand but I accept there are people who take their sport seriously. This book was not funny as some other of his books are. It made interesting rather than compelling reading.

The world needs to know about Henrik Bachmann's novels. This is a gorgeous conclusion to this trilogy. You could read it without the previous books, but why would you?!