Finished: The Winners (Backman) This is the final book in the Bear Town trilogy, and Bear Town is one of my favorite books in recent years. The characters just grab your heart and don't let it go through the entire series. They are flawed and messy, but also so deserving of love. The entire story is about a remote town called Bear Town, a town that centers around the hockey club for the youth. It is also the story of it's bitter rival from Hed, the next town over. But, it's about so much more than hockey. In the first book, when the former "best player ever to come out of Bear Town, who also made it into the NHL", Peter Andersson, moves his family back to town so he can take over coaching the team, the relationships all intensify, and the hockey team excels until...Peter's teenage daughter, Maya, is assaulted by the star player of the team. Events unfold that alter everyone's history and the team's success. Things in Bear Town seem as if they'll never be the same again. There are many characters I loved in Bear Town, but the one who stayed with me the most was Benji, the right hand man of the star player both on and off the ice. He's a character with an incredible conscience and a huge heart, but has an innate toughness from a very hard childhood. No one wants to cross him on the ice. He's one of my favorite literary characters, which is a big deal for me. :-) He's got a few demons that come to light at the end of the first book, and continue on through the second book. By the end of the second book, he's quit hockey and left town, and his three older sisters, to go and "roam". Maya also leaves town by the end of the second book as she heads off to college. So, The Winners starts with the death of a fairly major character who is instrumental in many of the townspeople's lives...particularly in Benji's life and in Peter's. She's very much like a second mother to Benji and becomes a tell-it-like-it-is friend to Peter. With her passing, the entire town mourns, and both Benji and Maya travel back to Bear Town for her funeral. Hockey in Bear Town is thriving again, but some of the favorites from last season's team have had to move on in various ways. The author foreshadows the death of another beloved character throughout the book, and of course, my hugest fear is that it will be Benji. I'm not going to give it away here, but I will say that the death was heartbreaking, no matter who it was, and was completely indicative of how this particular person would have sacrificed him/herself. :::sobs::: Before the tragic death, though, Maya and Benji and Bobo and Amat and Ana, who had all grown close in the previous books, are able to spend some quality time together and it's magical to witness. The writing of Fredrik Backman, who also wrote A Man Called Ove and Anxious People, among others, is outstanding as usual. He knows how to get to the heart of each character and each story and make the reader love, ache and particularly, relate. I just wish there was more to come about the people from Bear Town, but he says that story is now done. Here's a favorite passage of mine from The Winners. 

"In a crisis we instinctively seek out the only thing that really matters, even in our sleep: the breath of others, a pulse for our own to keep time with. Every now and then their dad gently puts one hand on his sons' and daughter's backs, one at a time, to make sure they're still breathing. There's no good reason to suspect that they aren't, but there's nothing reasonable about being a parent. The only thing everyone said when he was about to become a father was: 'Don't worry.' What a meaningless thing to say. There's an immensity of love that bursts from your chest the first time you hear your child cry, every emotion you've ever felt is amplified to the point of absurdity, children open the floodgates inside us, upward as well as down. You've never felt so happy, and never felt so scared. Don't say 'don't worry' to someone in that position. You can't love someone like this without worrying about everything, forever."

Sigh, I will miss this series and these characters so much!