Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children.

Someone is coming home after a long time away. The residents continue to grapple with life’s big questions: What is a family? What is a community? And what, if anything, are we willing to sacrifice in order to protect them?Īs the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. Politicians, business-people, lawyers, and gangsters all get involved, and the citizens of both towns find themselves fighting for their clubs, towns, and humanity.Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Hed hockey rivalry leads to more than just two Swedish teams on the ice. However, events quickly spiral out of control when the Beartown vs. The death of Ramona, the beloved barkeeper of the Bearskin Pub, brings the whole town together for the funeral. Benji Ovich, her friend has also left Beartown to find himself but is living a life full of drugs and alcohol. Two years after Maya Anderson’s rape by Kevin, a hockey star, which has turned the town against her, she finds herself far away in college. The translation is expertly done, which is much harder than it sounds, to bring us a dramatic, and satisfying novel with a sense of humor. The writing is powerful, engrossing, yet easy to read. As with the other two books in the series, as well as with the author’s other books, there are foreshadwing of events that make one wants to keep on reading until the end. The narrative is straightforward and easy enough to keep track of the concurrent narratives. However, I never found myself lost or losing interest. The plot, or actually multiple plots, is engrossing as they are complex, just like life itself. The mark of a gifted writer, if nothing else Backman managed to make each character a real person which I found myself caring about. Usually, in books with so many characters, the reader gets lost, but somehow Mr. It is difficult to end a popular series, with beloved characters, but The Winners by Fredrik Backman managed to do it in style and flourish as well as an emotional ending to this beloved series.Īll of the beloved characters from the previous novels are back, and certainly, others who are just as engrossing. This was an outstanding ending to the Beartown trilogy of Beartown, and Us Against You. The novels take place in a small Swedish hockey town. The Winners by Fredrik Backman is the third novel in the Beartown trilogy.

Fredrik backman the winners