They can see how much Beartown has changed. 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. The long-awaited conclusion to the beloved Beartown Series, which follows the small hockey town’s residents as they grapple with change, pain, hope, and redemption. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. This reading group guide for The Winners includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Fredrik Backman. He has a pistol and a plan that will leave Beartown with a loss that is almost more that it can stand.Īs it beautifully captures all the complexities of daily life and explores questions of friendship, loyalty, loss, and identity, this emotion-packed novel asks us to reconsider what it means to win, what it means to lose, and what it means to forgive. All the while, a fourteen-year-old boy grows increasingly alienated from this hockey-obsessed community and is determined to take revenge on the people he holds responsible for his beloved sister’s death. Simmering tensions between the two towns turn into acts of intimidation and then violence.

Maya’s parents, Peter and Kira, are caught up in an investigation of the hockey club’s murky finances, and Amat-once the star of the Beartown team-has lost his way after an injury and a failed attempt to get drafted into the NHL. The destruction caused by a ferocious late-summer storm reignites the old rivalry between Beartown and the neighboring town of Hed, a rivalry which has always been fought through their ice hockey teams. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. There is a new sense of optimism and purpose in the town, embodied in the impressive new ice rink that has been built down by the lake. Over the course of two weeks, everything in Beartown will change. A breathtaking new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People and A Man Called Ove, The Winners returns to the close-knit, resilient community of Beartown for a story about first loves, second chances, and last goodbyes.

The winners backman