The Winners (Beartown, #3) by Fredrik Backman (Goodreads Author)

The Winners by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I hate this book..I love this book..brilliantly written but oh so sad. A lot of my favorite characters are going to die in this book. Set 2 years after Us Against You The book begins with a storm and two deaths Ramona (the owner of the Bearskin aka Benji's at the end of the book.) dies of old age. And Ruth a girl we barely knew dies of an overdose far away and her parents have brought her home to bury. Unfortunately Ruth's brother (Matteo) blames hockey and hockey players for her death specifically Mumble (Beartown's goalie) and his former friend(Rodri). Matteo should have really blamed his Religious Fruitcake parents who called their daughter a liar and told the police she was making the rape allegations against Rodri up. Ruth ran away from home after that. Maya and Benji come home for Ramona's funeral. Zackell recruits a new hockey player Big City.

Meanwhile Tails has gotten Peter involved in a Ponzi scheme that is threatening to blow up with the newspaper editor investigating it. Peter is oblivious to all the trouble he is in, but Tails goes to Kira for help and she eventually tells Peter what is going on. In the end Tails will take the blame for everything. 

Bobo falls for a girl (Tess) from Hed, Peter and Kira reconnect, and Matteo becomes angrier and angrier at Hockey players. He poisons Sune's dog Bang. I really hated that and I wish that they had investigated Bang's murder and put Matteo away for it. But other than the Pack and Sune no one seems to care. Although a fight does break out at the hockey ring when some of the Hed players start barking. 

 Ruth writes in her diary 

"That's how you teach boys that they have rights over us. Then we get bigger and then they rape us..." She continues, "Parents always think they have to talk to their daughters about guys. But you don't have to talk to us about guys because we already know all that, for f---'s sake, because we're the ones they rape!! Talk to your damn sons instead!!! Teach them to talk to each other and teach them to stop each other. Raise just one f---ing boy somewhere who can become a head teacher who understands that when boys pull girls by the hair, it's the f---ing boys there's something wrong with." 

After the fight in the hockey ring Kira and Hannah (Tess's Mother and a midwife) lead a candlelight procession through the two towns and things seem to settle down until the next hockey match. Matteo sneaks into the Beartown locker room with a pistol and attempts to shoot Mumble. Alicia and Benji are in the locker room and Alicia is standing in front of Mumble asking questions so Benji does the only thing he can to save Alicia's life he flies into Matteo taking two bullets to the chest. Thankfully Ana's Father is at the game and has gone to make sure he locked his truck when he sees Matteo with the pistol. He isn't fast enough to stop him from shooting Benji, but he is able to shoot him before he can shoot anyone else. Lev and Ana help him get away before the authorities get there so no one will know he killed Matteo.

 I actually think there may be another book about Alicia in the future.

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