Reviews with content warning for Bullying - The Winners

What a ride of a book. It was a tad long at nearly 700 pages, but this I overlooked to reunite with my favourite characters and some new ones. The author writes them so beautifully, and in such a way that the ending is heartbreaking. "This hurts too much to touch with words", you do need to have read the previous 2 books in the trilogy, but the investment is so worth it. Friendships, politics, town rivalry, family relationships, religion, kindness, happiness, love, and so much more than ice hockey teams. It is an emotional, big-hearted, clever, and simply delightful. I absolutely loved it. Go Beartown.

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specklethecrow's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I cried so hard and want to erase this from my mind just to reread it again

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

I worry that I might hold Fredrick Backman to too high of a standard, and that a 4.5 for him might be a 5 for most other authors. The way that he writes is so compelling that it might just outweigh my (limited) critiques. His maelstrom of characters is just a bit overwhelming in this book. It’s realistic, of course, to two little forest towns. But the trajectories of all of these characters doesn’t quite all come to a head. There is no good ending because the characters are so fleshed out that they demand a life story beyond the capacity of the book, and the ending began to feel like a recitation of other book’s summaries; that’s how big these characters are. Because of this, I think the book might’ve been more cohesive if the focus had been narrowed on fewer characters, even if they all still played their roles. But oh! These characters have gotten into my heart. I’ve been thinking a lot about Backman’s flavor of found families. Some found families can become saccharine, but Backman’s are all undercut by something a little darker. There’s a poetic justice to it. After all, humanity is loathe to come together except in times of crisis. But there is so much love in the face of that, and Backman manages to put that into words in a way that it feels less like words and more like a feeling. (and because of that, i’m off to read fanfiction and cry now)

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