Fredrik Backman can just take all of my money. I am a lifetime devotee of Beartown and of anything Backman puts his mind to.

The Winners is the perfect conclusion to a perfect trilogy. I laughed, I cried, I paused reading when my mind was blown away by a casual yet life altering sentence casually tossed into a harrowing, page turning journey. I will forever love Benji. He's beautifully flawed perfection.

One moment can change the lives of so many. On person's decision can create a before and after for hundreds. the weight of this is heavy yet carried by every human daily.

Anything Fredrik Backman writes is gold. This is a perfect conclusion to the Beartown series!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC!

When I first requested this book, my thoughts were how was Backman going to top the first and second books, it's not possible. I knew the second book was setting up for a third, but I was nervous about how it was going to be executed. I had no reason to be nervous, because this was a masterpiece--just like the first and second of this series. Without giving anything away, I cried multiple times and was in shock reading the last 50 pages or so. Yet, I wouldn't change anything about the ending.

WOW. A new favorite. Recently I've been feeling like there's a trade-off between strong character development and engaging plot-- my picker has just been off. I'm glad I got it right here.

Also I'm not a parent but I adored the way he wrote about parenthood in this installment of Beartown.

Love this author and just loved this book! If you have been in the Fredrik Backman arena for a while, you know how heartfelt and deep his books go. His main characters journey and the secondary peeps we meet along the way, bring it all home!

With The Winners , author Fredrik Backman revisits fictive setting Beartown, bringing some storylines to a close, and showing a slice of life in the rural sports centered township. Originally released in Swedish, this English language translation from Simon & Schuster on their Atria imprint is 688 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out in late 3rd quarter 2023 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a *massive* book. It's a slice of life drama, focused on a small-town and its inhabitants. The awful events from the first book (violence, sexual abuse, assault, etc) are still rippling through the inhabitants and overshadowing daily life. For fans of the first book in the series, this is a great deal of the same. It's beautifully written, but there's a lot of repetition. At 688 pages, that's a lot of material to get through. For readers who haven't yet read the earlier books, this book can be read alone, but it will spoil the heck out of the earlier plot turns.

The translation work is seamless, and it really doesn't read like literature in translation. I compared random passages in the original and translation and didn't find any errors; stylistically the word choices are impressively close and very well made.

Four and a half stars. An important book. A huge and well written book. Probably longer than it needed to be. Full of drama and difficult to read/heartbreaking in places.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

5+ Stars!

This book was perfection. I thought the first book could have been a standalone book when I first ready it, but I’m so glad this story kept going. Flawless!!!! I have no words, only tears… this book is the #1 book of my year!

Fredrick Backman is my favorite author, and this series will hold a special place in my heart. I loved how the series was wrapped up. The book is long, but it never felt long, and honestly- I didn't want it to end.

Read. This. Series!!!!

Backman is one of my all-time favorite authors and this third book in the Beartown trilogy was no exception to his fine body of work. The way he's kept me interested in this small town of characters and hockey when this isn't a subject I'm typically interested in is astounding. He writes characters that are complex, relatable, and abhorrent/lovable all at the same time. Kudos.

You cannot go wrong with The Beantown series! I never would have thought I would be this invested in a hockey town book! Thank you for the opportunity to read and review.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Instagram!

Fredrik Backman has a way of writing characters that will stick with you for a long time. Once again we are brought back to Beartown and the life of ice hockey. This time it seems like everyone is falling apart-or falling toward each other. Town lines are being crossed as new love, new friendship, and the threat of a new hockey club. The community of Beartown is at a crossroads. The question is, how much is the community willing to sacrifice for their own sake? Backman will have you crying, laughing, and hoping for the beloved people in Beartown. The Winners is the perfect ending for this trilogy.

Fredrick Backman is by far a favorite author of mine and being a part of experiencing his books is so touching. He knows how to write in such a way that is relatable.

The characters, the story, the personality. This is done so flawlessly. This book was intimidating due to length but surprisingly didn’t feel as long

4.5 Stars: The Winners is the third and final book in the Beartown series (at least I think it is). Before I go any further I need to say that if you haven't read the first two books in this trilogy, this one may leave you scratching your head as you won't have the necessary background to the story. Beartown is an isolated community in Sweden in the middle of the forest. They are a "hockey town". In the previous books we meet the Andersson family. After a disastrous event two years earlier, Maya and her friend Benji Ovich have left town, not planning to return. Maya to college, Benji to find himself. They return home for a funeral, as well as to see friends. Beartown is changing, with a new ice rink, a practice facility in the works and new hockey sponsors. Everyone is trying to move on, but can they. It turns out that there is some financial issues with the team, some illegal and Peter Andersson, Maya's father, is right in the middle. As people try to fix things, the troubles between the hockey teams in Hed and Beartown escalate and once again, end in tragedy.

Fredrik Backman's books may not be for everyone, but they sure are ones that I enjoy. The Winners is not really a hockey book, it is about rivalry, jealousy, family, friendship, secrets, power, prejudice, hate, loss, grief and growth. I do not want to say that hockey is not a large part of the book, but it is the actual game and having a team rather than a game being played. The Winners gives us stories about some of the characters that were on the periphery in previous books. We learn about their lives and what happens next, as well as giving closure to some others. As much as I enjoyed this book, the length (671 pages) and audio (21 hours, 22 minutes) might make this intimidating for many, but I found it zoomed by. With Fredrik Bakman's wonderful writing and the well developed characters and their stories made this an enjoyable read/listen for me. Unfortunately, it did end with another tragedy, but by the end of the book, there was hope. . This was another winner for me, even though it was not for others.

It’s Backman. Do I need to say anything else?! I’d read this man’s grocery list if he’d print it. I haven’t found one of his books not to be a complete work or art. Many thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this copy for review

Oh man. I'm so sad to say goodbye to these characters. Fredrik Backman did such an amazing job of world building with this one. I can picture this place and these characters living in it almost as if I've been there. The foreshadowing was perhaps a little heavy-handed, but it probably saved my sanity to be able to mentally prepare for some of what was coming. Backman is the master of writing wonderfully likable, flawed characters.

Wow. If there's ever a book 4, I'll be first in line.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an electronic review copy.

Thank you Netgalley, Atria Books and Fredrik Backman for free e-ARC of The Winners in return of my honest review.

I did not want to pick that book up because it was a farewell to Beartown and it’s inhabitants. Because it is the last book of the series and I was not ready to let it go. I read a long time, too long to prolong the pleasure of the writing. Unfortunately, even this huge book has ended. I am tremendously sad about it.

I loved everything about it - I think Fredrik Backman is a true magician of literature. He will let the reader know what happens pretty much on the first page and then takes time to create a narrative that will leave you in tears and heartbroken over fictional characters and fictional city and fictional lives. He doesn’t create anything new basically, however the way he spins the story is extraordinary.

I will miss Beartown, and mostly I will miss Benji, Alicia, Maya, Ana, Peter and Kyra.

Thank you, Fredrik Backman, for creating Beartown. From the bottom of my avid reader and hockey lover heart, for these three books. I will start to re-read the series soon.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an e-ARC of The Winners by Fredrik Backman.
A perfect conclusion to a great trilogy. Backman writes with emotion and feeling. He creates characters that you cheer for and settings you want to visit. A great ending to a great series!

The Winners was a great conclusion to the Beartown story, but honestly I think the first book could have stood on it's own and I don't think it needed to be continued. Reading this book kind of solidified that opinion for me. There was also so much filling in of previous books that I think was unnecessary in some instances and like it was more relying on the character arcs of previous books which I don't think it really needed to. Overall, it was nice to see the characters we love so much, but I wish I had liked this book more as it's own thing and less as just an extension of something I already liked.

I really liked this. All of Backman's books make me cry. But I do feel like this one was a bit longer than it needed to be. There was a lot of repetition of things from other books

This book was a great conclusion to the Beartown series. While the book definitely felt longer than it needed to be, Backman’s writing has the ability to draw you back in so easily that you forget that.