Thank you, Atria Books, for the gifted copy of The Winners. {partner}

Genre: Fiction
Format: 📖🎧
Pub Date: 9.27.2022
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Summary:

“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.”

Review:

“The end of life is as unstoppable as its beginning; we can’t stop the first and last breaths we take any more than we can stop the wind.”

Honestly, I didn’t want to read The Winners. Why? Because I didn’t want the series I’ve fallen in love with to be over. I didn’t want to say goodbye to the characters that I’ve grown to know so well. I just wasn’t ready to be done with Beartown. I’m still not ready to be done.

I began reading The Winners slowly and switched to listening (because I love the audiobook narrator, Marin Ireland). I paused to take in profound quotes, scrambled to find my book so that I could tab whole paragraphs, and stopped reading on several occasions due to tears clouding my vision.

The Winners wasn’t an easy read, but it was the flawless cumulation to the series, and I am so glad I read the books. Throughout three books, I’ve gotten to know all the characters on such a deep level that I had to remind myself that they are fictional. They do not exist in my world.

I can’t say enough about this incredible, complex, character-driven, stunning, tragic, unforgettable book. I wholeheartedly encourage you to read these books.

I want to warn you that The Winners contains graphic details of rape, drug use, a shooting, and a heartbreaking few pages involving the death of a dog from poisoning. Please DM if you are concerned.

Beartown, Us Against You, and The Winners are books I plan to revisit in the future and read again when I need a reminder of just how beautiful writing can be.

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BOOK INFO
Format: 684 pages, hardback
Published: September 2022
ISBN 1982112794 (ISBN13: 9781982112790)