This book, the third in the trilogy, was worth the wait! Fredrik Backman is one of the most talented authors I have had the privilege of reading. I highly recommend the entire Beartown series to anyone and everyone - these books should not be missed!

“About a vast forest and two small towns and all the people here who are just trying to live their lives. Sit in a boat. Tell lies. Catch zero fish.”

The BRILLIANT Fredrik Backman strikes again with this 3rd part of the Beartown trilogy.! Whether it’s new characters introduced or old favorites reunited, Backman has an incredible talent of making you care too deeply about each character arch. I am in awe of how he weaves the tale, seamlessly interconnecting people you didn’t realize were connected. He really has his finger on the pulse of humanity, such an understanding of emotion. And he has such expressive insights, simple yet profound…I find I want time to dwell on the things he writes. My brain is swimming in reflection. My copy is covered in highlights!

It’s overwhelming how much the author tackles; there is a lot to absorb and give pause. Topics like what makes people who they are, how people can be the same yet different, what we carry with us and how it impacts who we are. It’s about friendship, loyalty, family, loss, motherhood, marriage, identity, class, community, competition, taking sides, truth, fairness, guilt, forgiveness, repentance, culpability, and politics. And throughout the series, I am genuinely moved by his capacity for telling the female perspective so poignantly.

There were 3 topics that really stuck with me in the book:
(1) Surface identity vs who someone really is
and how “good people can be capable of great evil, and evil people can be capable of great good.”
(2) How darkness overtakes a person, in the struggle of good vs evil. This book had more darkness in it.
(3) The parallel stories of Maya, her family and her experience versus that of Ruth. “They were so alike, in so many ways. The only thing that separated them was everything”. That comparison and the outcomes were particularly gut wrenching to me.

He has recurring motifs/themes through the book and even the series. The repetition works well with things like shoot it bury it, simple and complicated, winning/losing, those who run into fire, and of course, BANG!

Backman has the ability to flip your emotion on a dime. Many times I was chuckling one minute and then two seconds later, my heart would be squeezed tight.

I delayed reading this because, well, its 700 pages! So it does take some time to drive through it. But by the end, I was so sad it was over and I was missing all my favorite characters. So many great ones but I will especially miss the lovable Bobo, who was absolute light in darkness, and the perpetually tragic Benji, who was all heart. And the person who absolutely gutted me was Matteo. These characters will stay with me.

I didn’t care about the politics and reporting again, those parts were too complicated, but I get why they are in there.

There are several triggers in this book (rape, violence, shooting) that may be hard for some people to read. But it all fits and comes full circle.

Farewell, Beartown! It was a pleasure getting lost in your world filled with the complexities of life. (But it did kind of feel like a door was maybe left open to come back one day)

“This hurts too much to touch with words.”

The only flaw I can find with this book is that it's the last in the series. Benji and Amat forever. Fredrick Backman is a genus.

This is the best trilogy that I have ever read. Backman is truly one of the best authors to have ever put pen to paper. This story was about so much more than hockey so I hope those shying away from it give it chance. You won't regret it. I had a more than a couple of good ugly cries while reading these books and was so sorry to leave the characters behind.

In this last installment of the Beartown story, we learn the fate of Beartown hockey and it's residents. Whether they were villains or heroes of the story, I found myself completely invested in each of them and wanting to know more about them and their story.

While I have read and reread most of Backman's books, but I am not sure my heart will ever be ready to revisit Beartown. All three books are absolute stellar 5 star reads.

While this book may not have the charm of some of his other books, Blackman tells another interesting story of the lengths people go to in support of their sports teams.

The final installment in the Beartown series. It was beautiful and heartbreaking. It was a perfect ending but left me devastated. I feel satisfied with the Maya situation. I do feel not as great about another hockey player's situation. This is the one series by Bachman that I really liked, and was happy to get this copy ahead of time. His other books are pretty meh to me, sad to say.

Thank you so much to #netgalley and #atriabooks for this advanced reader's copy for an honest review.

I have loved all of this author's book, except for the Beartown series. I don't know what it was, but I just didn't care for those books. However, since I did read the first two, I wanted to see the series through to the end. I just couldn't get into this one. I felt like the whole story was being told, rather than letting the reader experience it (hard to explain, but that's how I felt). It had been a long while since book 2, so there was a lot I was not remembering. If you are a Beartown fan, I'm sure you'll love this book.

The Winner is simultaneously absolutely beautiful and completely tragic. It's the conclusion of the Beartown trilogy, and like the other two in the series, it is a heaping helping of feels. It is brilliantly and beautifully written, as Backman always is. This one really focuses on the trauma of a town in a number of different ways, as well as the complexities of relationships with people, with sport, and with the past. This one is a really heavy read, so be ready for that going in, and also that's really a hallmark of this series, so if you've met it this far, you know what you're getting into. Thanks to NetGalley for the look at this recent release!

I love Hockey, and getting to read about all the crazy things that went on in these two small rival towns was mind blowing.

If you haven’t read this yet, it’s an absolute must!

Well, I've completed the Beartown trilogy and my life is now bereft. These characters will live in my heart forever and ever amen. Thank you to Backman and the entire time for giving us such a rich and wondrous world to live in for these three books. I will love it forever.

I had such high hopes for this one after reading the first two books in the series. I felt like this was dragged out a bit too much and just focused on certain characters a little too much when others should of gotten more of a turn in the spotlight. The ending was really sad and broke my heart. This author does write very well and really has a way of making the reader feel every emotion while readinh his books. I was happy everything wrapped up in this final book but it just was not my cup of tea.

This book really just took me for a ride. I loved the build up, the character development, and the writing. What a great way to finish off this series.

Another great writing by an author I really enjoy reading. I didn’t realize this was book three in a series so I will be going back and reading the other two. I truly enjoy the way this author developed his characters and how there is almost always a pull of many emotions when reading this author. Thanks for the advanced copy.

Unfortunately, I have been locked out of my netgalley account for a few months and was not able to see which books I had on my list, in order to properly read and review. I do apologize and am doing a 3 for neutral. Will update once I’m able to obtain a copy and read!

The Winners
Fredrik Backman
reviewed by Lou Jacobs

readersremains.com | Goodreads

Finally comes the third volume in Backman’s masterpiece involving “Beartown;” the anxiously awaited conclusion to the saga involving a trove of beloved characters plus a host of new relevant characters.
What hasn’t changed is the lifelong rivalry and hostility between the two neighboring forest towns of Beartown and Hed. Although this is the third volume, it can still be enjoyed and devoured as a standalone due to Backman’s seamless interwoven backstory. Because of the wonderful style of his flowing insightful prose it is easy to follow the complex interwoven storylines connecting the multitude of multi-layered characters.
We soon learn that good people are capable of evil when pressured and evil people can unexpectedly surprise with goodness. Explored will be many of life’s endless quandaries and emotions: friendship, love, corruption, politics, money, power, abuse, rape, hypocrisy, rage, family, parenthood, and community. It truly is amazing the breadth and depth of social issues that are dealt with in this moving and profound story, The narrative effortlessly glides through one heartfelt moment to the next. Male and female readers alike will often be brought to tears of sadness and joy.
The novel begins with a tumultuous storm tearing through the forests bordering the two competitive towns of Beartown and Hed. The squall brings epic wind gusts and snow resulting in uprooted trees, closed roads, and destroyed buildings, including the collapse of Hed’s hockey rink roof, along with chaos and deaths in both towns. During the storm, crazy and wild Ana (best friend of Maya) drives her drunk father’s truck through insurmountable obstacles to help a midwife from Hed (Hannah) to save a woman, who is giving birth in a stuck vehicle. Stories of daring rescue will abound, however in the aftermath the death of one individual will have far-reaching effects on both towns. Momentarily both towns will pull together to mourn a common loss. It also will bring back home two of our main beloved characters, Maya Andersson and Benji Ovich.
Maya was victim of rape by Kevin Erdahl, a hockey star for the Beartown club. She bore the wrath of the town. How dare she accuse the star of their beloved team, of such a heinous act? Surely it was her fault. Why should he not continue playing? Benji Ovich was the best friend of both Kevin and Maya. He was the team’s enforcer and protected Kevin on the ice.
His life was left in turmoil, once the town became aware that he was gay. Independently both Maya and Benji left Beartown. Maya left to pursue her life’s passion at music college, while Benji left for Asia to pursue drugs and alcohol, in a setting devoid of hockey. They both return in respect for the death of beloved Ramona—barkeeper and owner of the Bearskin Pub—the essential meeting place of the Beartown community. Their presence will alter the dynamics of the competing towns, which encompasses not only the hockey clubs, but also the social and economic fabric. The struggles and confrontations involving both towns intensify in the aftermath of the storm. Tensions flare and grow, even resulting in fights involving the neighboring spectators attending the junior hockey game. It’s rumored that Hed hockey team will be shut down because of the collapse of their rink’s roof and their financial troubles. It’s also rumored that the local paper ( located in Hed ) is investigating corruption and possible embezzlement involving the Beartown hockey club. Animosity escalates as violence flares.
Central to the story is not only the importance of community, but more so the overwhelming need for family and friendship. One of the most important new characters is Alicia. A seven-year-old abused girl from a poor broken family. She possesses an extreme degree of talent and desire to play hockey. She will be nurtured and loved by many of our beloved main characters, including Sune, the retired hockey coach, and Peter, the team’s previous general manager ( and former team player, and NHL player). Peter since leaving the team is having a difficult time in finding meaning and purpose in life. His marriage with Kira, his lawyer wife, is in turmoil. Many secrets remain between the two, as they drift apart.
Fredrik Backman masterfully weaves a multi-layered complex story with multiple converging plot lines, that escalate in tension and intrigue and culminate in a heart rendering denouement.
Explored are many opposing circumstances: fierce love by mother and father, as opposed to abuse and neglect of children, revenge or forgiveness, courage and cowardice, many and variable emotions abound: love / hate and joy / sadness.
I savored this novel, dreading to say goodbye to so many old and new amazing characters. Even though this is supposedly the conclusion, hopefully Backman will explore in future novels the lives of Alicia or Ana. Their further trial and tribulations are begging to be told.
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review. (less)

Fredrik Backman never fails to deliver a well-thought out, poignant and heartfelt story. This third addition to his Beartown series is no exception. Backman is not afraid to explore and address multiple very serious issues facing society today. He puts names and faces to them and is a superb storyteller unlike any other. There is a lot going on in this book but it is all handled deftly and with humanity.

Five thousand stars for this book if I could. On how I love Beartown. The author does a spectacular job breaking your heart over and over again, all while weaving such a beautiful story, you hang on to every single word up until the very last. These are stories told about tragedies, importance of family and the ties that bind everyone together during hard times. It’s about hockey but not about hockey at all. It’s about death and life, love and hatred. I am so sad this trilogy has come to an end, but I will read these books again.

Thank you thank you NetGalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review

The Winners was absolutely amazing! It shattered my heart but let’s be honest, which Fredrik Backman book doesn’t. He’s just got this magic writing style I can’t get enough off. The Winners did not disappoint at all. Such a satisfying ending to this series. I loved how everyone got back together in this small eerie town for the funeral. I will never be whole again because of Benji though. It’s sad to let these characters go now. They’ve been part of my life for such a long time. Thank you for letting me read this book early it’s been an amazing journey I won’t forget.

I really, REALLY wanted this to be better than it was. And, to be completely fair, it had its moments. But at the risk of being as cheesy as roughly half of this book was: this series should've ended with a bangbangbang - not the protracted whimper it did in fact end with.

There are three major problems here: the first and probably most egregious is that most of the characters we already know had reached the end of their narrative arcs in book 2 - or are maybe so close to the end of them that they needed only a few more chapters each to be wound up. Benji has basically nothing to do the entire book but regret things he's already regretted; Ana, in lieu of anything to do after the first act, has her personality turned up to screechingly loud and annoying levels; and Kira and Peter's marital issues - easily the most tedious storyline - are dragged out to a yawn inducing degree. Even the most minor of characters (Teemu, Alicia, Tails) just feel like they're retracing the things that happened to them in previous books. And I could maybe say well, whatever, I love these characters so much that I'd really just like to spend time with them even if it never feels like they're moving forward, but then there's issue number two: how incredibly protracted the pacing is here.

It's most obvious in the beginning, where Backman takes roughly a hundred pages to forecast a terrible, life-altering storm, a solid twenty-five percent of which is purely set dressing and heavy-handed foreshadowing. And man, if you were hoping the foreshadowing would let up there, sorry, there's a reason this book is twice the length of Beartown while telling half the story. And what a story it could've been too: for all that I've just complained that it felt like the characters we already knew were just spinning their wheels, the new characters Backman introduced were almost instantly engaging and had complicated, fascinating stories all their own. More significantly, while Benji, Ana, et al. may have reached the end of their arcs Beartown and Hed have not, so all the stuff about the tensions building between those two towns really worked for me. If only it hadn't petered out (badumtiss!) before the OTT finale, and if only Backman could have written it without constantly editorializing.

This would be issue number three: the lengthy, look-into-the-camera, spell-it-out-for-the-audience spiels about how difficult it is to be a parent and to be in a marriage and also to love hockey and to experience loss and yes yes yes, okay! Okay! We get it. Being alive and having relationships with other people is tough: the characters and situations here are strong enough to bear that message in action and development; it does not need to be explained over and over why these people are getting emotional. Particularly when you've already had several similar situations earlier on in the book. This is something that feels like a hallmark of Backman's writing and in small doses I do feel like it works to gently underscore rather than to messily highlight (see: Beartown), but here it just makes those six hundred pages feel all the longer.

And it's strange, because it does feel like there's material enough for six hundred pages - and having the tensions between the towns and Matteo's storylines dovetail rather than rather than having one end and the other act as the finale would have made the length all the more worthwhile - and yet it also feels like a lot of that material never really gets off the ground. Take, for example, the fact that there's a lot of talk about the drama that will ensue between the Beartown and Hed hockey teams during the game but that there's not a single hockey game in the entire book. And yes, we do get the drama, but I don't know, without the game being played...it just felt emblematic of there being something missing here that had been so present in Beartown and to a lesser extent in Us Against You.

And yet, there were traces of the first book's greatness here: how could there not be? When Backman did choose to bring the plot out it WAS interesting and there was a reveal that actually made me gasp out loud it was so well done. It just wasn't all it could've been. It maybe would've been better to graduate to a new cast entirely. Like, say, Alicia's generation.

I'm left with a lot of mixed feelings here. Because parts of this book really left me cold but other parts I did really enjoy, and then there's just the fact that I love this crazy forest hockey town and, again, would have happily just sat in on scenes of them hanging out at the lake. I can't tell if I wanted there to be more to this or less, if I wanted Backman to get more deeply into the characters or just for him to show vignettes of their lives. What we ended up with here was a kind of middle ground, half okay, half not. This series could have gone out better than that. But, you know, if you've read the first two you basically have to read this to see where it all ends up. (And if you've still just only read Beartown...you may be better off staying there.)

Another beautifully written book by Fredrik Backman. I just love his stories and his characters, so I hope this is not the last of Bear Town. Backman has a knack for weaving these complicated stories and connections, making you question morals and principles, The Winners is no exception.