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.*

Review: The Enigma of Room 622

Every once and awhile I think to myself, “Let’s spread our book reading wings a little bit, Kaley, and try something a little different.” Sometimes it works and I find a book I love. And sometimes…well…sometimes it leads me to hate reading a mystery that seemed like it should be a good fit for me and is just really, really not. That happened with The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker. I don’t even really know what I read, to be honest.

Here's the book’s description:

A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622.
Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622. The attendant circumstances: the succession of Switzerland’s largest private bank, a mysterious counterintelligence operation called P-30, and a most disreputable sabotage of hotel hospitality. A European phenomenon, The Enigma of Room 622 is a matryoshka doll of intrigue–as precise as a Swiss watch–and Dicker’s most diabolically addictive thriller yet.

The book hit my radar at a HarperCollins Canada influencer event. I thought it sounded a little different and like a mystery I could really sink my teeth into. What I ended up getting was a convoluted mystery that the author inserted himself into. I think? Or maybe he was just writing the mystery and turning it into a novel? Or maybe he just made the whole thing up? Smarter readers than I may have it all figured out, but I still don’t know what was real and what was a novel within the novel. And that kind of drove me bananas.

I also didn’t like how the story was written. I don’t know if it was because it was a translation (from French and translated by Robert Bononno) but it felt so choppy and I couldn’t find a good rhythm. And it wasn’t just how the sentences were constructed that I had an issue with. I just didn’t find that the flow of it made any sense whatsoever. It jumped around in time and I couldn’t keep track of much of anything. Then there were a million reveals at the end of the book so I didn’t even get a satisfying conclusion.

I didn’t particularly care about the characters either. I doubt I was supposed to like them but I’m a reader who likes to at least find the characters intriguing even if I don’t particular like them. I don’t think I would have cared if any of them had gone to jail for the murder. As it is, I’ve totally forgotten who committed the crime.

No, The Enigma of Room 622 was not a winner for me. I’m sure there’s an audience for Joël Dicker’s novel but I, unfortunately, was not it.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, HarperCollins Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*