Review: The Winners

I was kind of late to the Beartown game. I knew about the book but wasn't entirely sure I'd enjoy it. My book club decided to read it in the summer of 2018 and then I finally understood what people were talking about. It was incredible and I immediately put the second book, Us Against You, on hold at the library (I loved it too). I was so grateful and excited to receive an ARC of book three, The Winners, (seriously - there was squealing when I opened the envelope). This book. Oh, my heart. It is everything.

Here's the book's description:

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. 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?
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.
So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?
Everything.

This book is massive. It’s a chunky, hefty tome that clocks in at roughly 680 pages. On the one hand, I’m not sure why it had to be that long. On the other, well, I’m so so so very glad it was. I didn’t want the story to be over so I was thankful to have so many pages of this book to read. This is a story that you don’t want to see the end of.

I’ve only read this series from Backman so I don’t know how he writes his other books. This series though? I can’t properly explain how perfectly he’s written this story. It’s not written like most other books I’ve read. There’s a third person omniscient narrator who knows everything that’s happening or has happened in the story. They even know what will happen even if they don’t always tell us (that first chapter though…). It’s the perfect way to tell a story with a bajillion characters who all need to be featured. And if that sounds confusing, it’s totally not. This series works because it’s telling the story of a community, not just one or two characters (even if there are a few who shine brighter than others).

I’m a pretty emotional person who cries more at books than movies or TV but doesn’t always cry at scenes you’d expect. And sometimes it seems like I have an empty space in place of a heart when gut-punch scenes don’t affect me at all. *shrugs* I went in prepared to have All The Feels with this book thought and, friends, it got me. It did take longer than I expected for the tears to come but I had to fight not to sob when I was getting to the end (maybe don’t read this book in the lunchroom at work?) EVEN THOUGH I knew what was going to happen. Backman dropped hints throughout but, my god, it still hurt when you were actually reading it.

If you haven’t yet experienced the magic that is Beartown, you absolutely must read this series. The Winners is a perfect conclusion to a series I never wanted to see end. As much as it broke my heart, it couldn’t have ended any other way. Fredrik Backman is a writing wizard and I’m so very glad I’ve been able to get lost in this series.

*An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*