The Winners

by Fredrik Backman

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

With The Winners , author Fredrik Backman revisits fictive setting Beartown, bringing some storylines to a close, and showing a slice of life in the rural sports centered township. Originally released in Swedish, this English language translation from Simon & Schuster on their Atria imprint is 688 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out in late 3rd quarter 2023 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. 

This is a *massive* book. It's a slice of life drama, focused on a small-town and its inhabitants. The awful events from the first book (violence, sexual abuse, assault, etc) are still rippling through the inhabitants and overshadowing daily life. For fans of the first book in the series, this is a great deal of the same. It's beautifully written, but there's a lot of repetition. At 688 pages, that's a lot of material to get through. For readers who haven't yet read the earlier books, this book can be read alone, but it will spoil the heck out of the earlier plot turns.

The translation work is seamless, and it really doesn't read like literature in translation. I compared random passages in the original and translation and didn't find any errors; stylistically the word choices are impressively close and very well made.

Four and a half stars. An important book. A huge and well written book. Probably longer than it needed to be. Full of drama and difficult to read/heartbreaking in places.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.