Reviews

The Winners by Fredrik Backman

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lizschultz24's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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brn's review against another edition

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5.0

I admit that when I read the first book in this series it took me until Chapter 26 to become interested. But then after that there was no putting it down. Now having finishing the last book I am sad. Sad because the Beartown story is done. I will miss the characters. Anyone (myself included) that comes from a small hockey town or a small town in general can relate to every aspect of Beartown series. I am sure we could take every character in this series and find a matching personality in my home town. This series made me homesick in a good way. It makes me miss the goodness and the community mindedness of my own small town.

mmccombs's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

So this book was basically exactly the same as the other two, so I should have loved it, but mostly I felt over it by the time I was only halfway through. It had the usual good writing, good characters, and bonkers domino effect of a plot, but this one felt especially over-the-top, repetitive, and long. Every bad thing that hadn’t already happened in the first two books happened in this one, and it wasn’t exactly compelling. When I finished Us Against You, I was like “ah ha! These towns have finally remembered the power of hockey and friendship!” And then this book was like, “hm, no, let’s make it much worse but in a way that doesn’t feel as natural as it did before!” There were quite a few bits where I was hit with a feeling of Deja-vu, where it seemed I was reading the same exact scene/inner character thought I had earlier in the book. I just couldn’t stay as interested and the drama was just too much, so for that reason the simpler, more down-to-earth (if still cheesy) character work I loved so much in the first two books felt a bit lost.

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climbergirl's review against another edition

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5.0

I kind of don't want to give this 5 because it hurt me but it really is quite good. All the story lines weave together and even pull references from books 1 & 2. If you have ever read Backman's books you know not everything will be happy and it's true here too. It is even foreshadowed so you know it won't be happy, but you still aren't quite prepared. Even so I laughed, I cried (a lot), and totally fell in love with these characters.

amberj40's review against another edition

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5.0

This final book on the Beartown Trilogy was heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. I find Mr. Backman's writing so power. You need to slow down to read every sentence because there is so much "hidden" you don't want to miss. I'm sad this is over but glad it went on for 3 long books.