Fredrik Backman is the most brilliant man on earth. His books can make you feel a multitude of complex emotions and somehow tell so many stories in one story?? At times it felt like there was a lot going on and many side characters but everything came together and I felt like all the side characters served their purpose. I was much more interested in the storylines revolving around family, hockey, and gender than the political/journalism storylines. But I see how they all contributed to the overall plot. This series broke me and I never knew I could fall in love with so many fiction and flawed characters.

I can’t wait to see what Backman writes next

Would have been a five star read if the dog hadn’t died. WHY!!!! Not necessary to the plot
4.75/5

What a great ending to this three part series! I loved Beartown and it will always be my favorite of the 3 but The Winners was not short of tears, love and passion. I re-fell in love with all the characters for different reasons. Backman did it again, I was left with my emotions on my sleeve and his writing imprinted in my brain.

Oh man I don’t think Fredrik Backman can do no wrong. Now I want to warn you. This is the longest book of his I’ve ever read, and it does start off slow but if you give it a chance I promise you will fall in love with it and of course will ugly cry so much. It was a great way to end the series.

This series is emotional and heartwarming. Backman has a beautiful writing style that draws me into the story and the lives of his characters.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC.

All the feels & all the tears! I wholeheartedly love this series, these characters, this fictional town. ⁣
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I don’t think I can give an unbiased review of this book or this series. These characters & these books genuinely own a piece of my heart. This book picks up two years after 𝘜𝘴 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘠𝘰𝘶. I loved getting to know what become of these characters. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝗪𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 both broke my heart and healed it at the same time. ⁣
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This series might seem as if its about hockey but it’s about so much more. It’s about the human spirit, family, friendship, community, love, hope, the choices we make, fighting for what’s right, standing up for yourself, redemption, forgiveness, winning, losing and above all persevering in the face of adversity. This was a rather long book but I listened on audio and as it gripped my heart, I never felt the length. Highly recommend this series!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of "The Winners" in exchange for an honest review. In my mind, Fredrik Backman can do no wrong. His prose is hauntingly beautiful and his plots are so intricately well-spun. As with the other Beartown books, this is full of heartbreak, loss, and grief. Be aware that difficult and potentially triggering topics come up, as in the first two. Thank you to Backman for writing the characters to life again and giving us an opportunity to say goodbye to them.

Here are 3 reasons why The Winners is a winner:
1. The series is so much more than hockey. It’s about family, friends, and teammates; motherhood, parenting, and marriage; love and hatred; violence and kindness, enemies and heroes.
2. Backman's words - if you love his previous work, you will love this series and conclusion. I highlighted entire chapters because his words moved me to tears, made me chuckle, and caused me to pause as I pondered the meaning of a sentence.
3. The Conclusion - Prepare yourself. Throughout the series, you will fall in love with Maya, Anna, Benji, Amat, Bobo, and Alicia. The ending nicely concludes the Beartown story. However, as much as my heart was full, my face was wet with fat ugly tears. I genuinely love this series!

Backman dropped me right back into his phenomenal serious without a moment’s hesitation. I was instantly transported to Bear Town and Hed and felt like I never left. I knew the end was coming, so I savored every word and every character. I can honestly say I would have read another 600+ pages just to stay in this world a bit longer. Backman’s characters will never leave my heart, and for that…. I am thankful!

Wow, what a finale. This book is THICK. At 600+ pages, Bachman slowly recounts the past few years and shows us where this town is headed. You really have to love Bachman to push through the first 250 pages because it is very slow. We are introduced to a few characters and also get glimpses of the characters we already know and love. You have to have patience to read Bachman, you know he is putting together an amazing story but sometimes he takes the long way around.

Overall, I loved the final Beartown book. It brings us back to the pain of book one. We see what could have been. The richness of this town is so apparent in this final book, characters have grown, the town has changed...yet in some ways stays just the same.

Goodbye Beartown

The power this series has over me in unhealthy. Did I ever think I would be so in love with books about hockey? Absolutely not. But here I am, bawling my eyes out in bed at 4 am after finishing this because I loved it so much. Fredrik Backman's writing is so captivating, it is impossible to not get completely wrapped up in the story. There are many characters in these books and I love each and every one of them. I will recommend this series for the rest of my life. Absolutely loved.

Beartown is a place, but it is also a state of mind. In this third and final book in the Beartown trilogy by my favorite author Fredrik Backman, stand out characters Maya and Benji have left and are returning home for a funeral. In a tale as old as time, Beartown and Hed are twin towns that just cannot get along. Ice hockey reins, as do dirty businessmen, politicians, and thugs (or "hockey enthusiasts".) Generational hate and trauma affect our townspeople as they try to work out a peaceful co-existence.

I loved the new family in this book, as well as old favorites and even loved to hate the same bad guys. I listened to this on audio, narrated by the voice in my head Marin Ireland (who's narration is so perfect in every way that I must assume she is now also the voice in Backman's head.) If you like audio, that is absolutely the way to go. However, I also received a print version ARC and as my daily audio time is limited and the book was dragging out too long, I had to end up alternating audio and print.

This book is long. So long that I hesitated to get into it. However, as I think about the brilliant writing about these characters, observations about human nature, and a perfectly plotted climax, there is not one thing I would have cut from this book. So, when you read it, know that it will take up your time and headspace, but it will absolutely be worth it. The original title of this was Those Who Run Towards Fire and I wish the powers that be would have let him keep that perfect title for this.

I feel changed by reading this book. I loved the symmetry of the first and last book and I think this third book might even be the strongest one. Won't you come to Beartown with me?

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for the advance copy for review. The audio version was purchased separately by me.

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!