I thought it was brilliant— totally PHENOMENAL [ambitious, complex, substantial depth, and wonderful characters]. Min mormor hälsar och säger förlåt (2013; English translation My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, 2015) [10] My favorite character was Ana, so fierce and loved so deeply. Her friendship with Maya was beautiful and sincerely warmed my heart. Ana: Oh Ana. You do beat all girl! You’re wild, you say the darndest things, and sometimes, frankly, you do the darndest things, but your heart - it has always been in the right place.

Ruth and Maya grew up in Beartown around the same time, and they left home within six months of each other. They each endured a horrific sexual assault, but then their stories took very different paths. What do you think it was that allowed Maya to survive her experience while Ruth did not? The Winners is installment #3 in the Beartown series. It is the story of family, loyalties, motivations, community, sports….and the big questions in life. What is a winner? Who are the winners? I fell in love with these characters in book one Beartown and continued to follow their journeys through book two, Us Against You Now as the final chapter of the trilogy plays out, I’m left emotionally spent. Beartown is as close to perfect as a book gets (if you ask me). The characters are fully developed and their actions have motivations and consequences that fully immerse the reader in their lives. Furthermore, the writing style is intriguing and darkly poetic — the kind of eerily woven sentences that leave a lasting impact. Seriously I don’t think we needed a book #3. Instead of feeling all excited to see what was coming next, the book is bogged down in repetition. Repetition of what the characters went through before – which I already knew. Repetition of how the two towns HATED EACH OTHER!!I was surprised when I found out the third book in the Beartown series was coming out! I thought all my favorite characters' stories had concluded, including Peter, Ramona, Maya, Anna, Benji, Amat, Bobo, and Kira… I couldn't have been more wrong! The characters I love most in this novel (and the entire trilogy) are the ones that make me feel every single one of these emotions (and more). Home. There really ought to be more words for that. One to cover the people we have there, another with room for those we have lost”. Maya Andersson and Benji Ovich, two young people who left in search of a life far from the forest town, come home and joyfully reunite with their closest childhood friends. They can see how much Beartown has changed. There is a sense of optimism and purpose in the town, embodied in the impressive new ice rink that has been built down by the lake.

Having loved the previous two Beartown books, I wondered if there was any more to add to the character's stories or to the toxic rivalry between Beartown and Hed, cumulating in acts of violence. I found this to be the most enthralling, moving book in the series and an emotional rollercoaster. Benji Ovich: I love you. I just freaking love you and think of you every single day (and yes, I know that you are a fictional character). I love the fact that you have the biggest heart on the planet. That you, Benji, love with every fiber of your being, often to your detriment. That you are the most loyal of friends, and that you love your sisters desperately and would do anything for them. That you love Beartown, its residents, and Ramona so very much. Your struggles have torn me apart, and yet you, you persevere. Just like Beartown. I hoped that The Winners would be the best conclusion of the Beartown series I could have hoped for. And in a lot of ways, it is. But … there was one thing I was mad about. I was so disappointed and can’t even tell why because of spoilers. So, I decided to rate this final book 4.5 stars and rounded it down. Both Beartown and Hed want to win, but more than that we are told they want to watch the other town lose. How does this attitude shape the events of the novel? The Winners asks us to consider whether everyone is deserving of forgiveness, and if someone who commits a terrible crime can be punished enough to wipe their slate clean. What do you think about these challenging questions? Has there been a time in your life when you’ve struggled with forgiving someone else? With forgiving yourself?I really enjoyed the storm and liked that it started with a bang!! I wish he would have played with this tension and kept it going because I didn’t feel it. The Winners is book 3 of the Beartown Trilogy, and what a fitting end it is. The Beartown Trilogy takes its rightful and permanent place on my all-time Top 10 best-books-ever-read list.

What we got were even more characters and a rather choppy read. When on stage, none of them got to go any kind of distance without being interrupted. This being said, the book had its moments, especially when Ana was featured. There’s a terrible wind storm in the forest; a man and his pregnant wife are trying to make it to the hospital when they’re stymied by fallen trees. A new character, Hannah, a midwife, is called upon to rescue the mother and the baby. The only way for her to get there is for Ana to drive her. Ana knows the forest better than anybody except for her father who’s too drunk to drive. As Hannah says, Ana is the type of person who runs toward the fire. Another touching moment happens toward the end of the book when Ana gives Hannah a mother’s day card. Ana never had a mother, but she made mother’s day cards with her fellow students, and she gives one to Hannah as thanks for being the mother she never had. We are privy to everyone’s life and so many just seemed tired. Everyone is keeping secrets to spare their loved ones. People who are hurting badly act out and the dominoes start to fall. The story is a tragedy in the true sense of the word.

Table of Contents

The choices we make, and the decisions that are made for us, some of which are little, some big, all of which have ramifications. Some of which are huge, and entirely unknown until they are too late.