Audiobook Review: The Winners by Fredrik Backman, narrated by Marin Ireland

The Winners
by Fredrik Backman, narrated by Marin Ireland (Compact Disc Backman)

Fredrik Backman returns to the characters and settings of Beartown and Us Against You to conclude a trilogy of devastatingly emotional storylines in The Winners. Beartown (2017) was a One Book – One Lincoln finalist in 2018, and introduced us to the small forest towns of Beartown and Hed (in Sweden, though it is never explicitly said), where both communities entire identities were tied into their individual hockey teams. When a rape occurs involving Beartown’s star player and the daughter of the team’s general manager, society breaks down. In Us Against You the possible dissolution of Beartown’s hockey team leads to a new configuration of star players, new types of friendships, and new antagonisms.

 

In The Winners, a few more years have passed, and Beartown hockey is once more on the rise, while a devastating storm destroys Hed’s hockey facility and causes even more friction between the two towns’ fanbases as the two teams must share an arena. Brewing resentments and hatreds slowly percolate beneath the surface, as old friendships are rekindled or re-explored, and characters who found themselves uprooted in the previous books face new beginnings.

 

Backman’s storytelling style, in which, throughout the book he throws in little asides about the long-term future of all the characters, makes you realize that before this book is done, there is going to be a life-changing event that impacts every single one of these people who readers have grown to admire and care about. The tension is slowly ratcheted up bit-by-bit, with occasionally moments of levity. But by the final few chapters you are on the edge of your seat, concerned with who will survive to the final page.

 

I really admired actress Marin Ireland’s narration of The Winners. She manages to create unique voices for nearly all of the characters, making me emotionally buy in to their journey. I generally listened to audiobooks-on-cd in my car, and I can honestly say that I was talking back to my CD player and my eyes were misting over as this story came to its climax. An excellent book, and I’ll only drop it from a “10” to a “9” for some minor pacing issues. Still highly recommended.

 

(You really, REALLY, have to have read/listened-to Beartown and Us Against You before you read/listen-to The Winners. Seriously, take my word for it! Otherwise, the rest of Fredrik Backman’s novels should also appeal to you, although this trilogy is Backman’s darkest works — the rest are significantly darker and more humorous than these three.)

 

( official The Winners page on the official Fredrik Backman web site )

 

See Scott C.’s review of the audiobook of Beartown in the June 2018 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

See Scott C.’s review of the audiobook of Us Against You in the March 2019 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

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