The Winners

 I got super lucky to score this bestselling novel by my favorite current Swedish author, Frederik Backman. I am fairly certain I am the first library patron to read this copy because 4 of the pages were slightly joined at the outer edge. The Winners is the third in a series about the hockey fans and players in the towns of Hed and Beartown. And in reading the author notes at the end I now understand that this is a new series that I can watch on Netflix so I got that to look forward to. What struck me in the book is how some people changed. One guy is a criminal and then he does something nice.  Another guy is a hometown hero but then he does something stupid. One set of parents seem nice but are they really? I am also struck by how strongly the associations and love between people who seem to be on the periphery of your existence. My hardcopy had 681 pages so it took me a few days to read it. I was hooked from the first page. Some parts were violent and I don't like violence. The book is about hockey and hockey is violent. I remember back to my first date with my wasbund. We went to a North Star hockey game. The game started and suddenly the crowd around me stood up and shouted, "Kill him, kill him." I was shocked. What was this fresh round of hell? One girl in the book grows up to be a hockey star. Another grows up to be a renowned singer/songwriter. Another grows up to be a helicopter pilot and paramedic. Some kids never get to grow up at all. I can hardly wait until this author writes another book.