Hello Bookish friends! Today I will be giving you a review of “The Winner’s Curse” by: Marie Rutkoski. Let me start by saying that I gave this book a 4 out of 5 stars. The reason I didn’t give it a full 5 star review is the ending kind of made me contemplate whether or not I should even continue reading ( or in my case, audio-booking) the rest of the trilogy. Don’t get me wrong, Rutkoski’s characters and the world they live in were both beautifully written, but sometimes authors put their characters in an awkward position where in the reader is left confused and slightly annoyed, and that is where I found myself at the end of the story , but let’s save that for later. Back to the review! A short synopsis of the story: Kestrel and Arin are two of the main characters and the main love interest throughout the book. Their world is ruled by the Valorians who are the aristocrats of the region. The Valorians had taken over the Herrani’s homes and land much like the Europeans colonized the Americas. Kestrel is the daughter of a respected Valorian general, and Arin the Herrani slave she buys at an auction. Throughout the beginning of the story Kestrel faces one main conflict: Her father wants her to join the army, but she is not very good with weapons or fighting and much rather play her beloved piano, but she is coming of the age where she must either marry or enlist. Arin also has a secret that Kestrel is unaware of.
I don’t know why, but there seems to be this cliche in Ya dystopian/ fantasy novels where the main male character is just a plain jerk in the beginning , but decides to completely soften up when the book is at it’s climax or when they are in some difficult situation. Throughout the beginning of the book Arin would guilt trip Kestrel so he could have more freedom to deal with his little ‘business’ outside of being a slave. Oh, but when he pulled his little stunt everything changed. Also can we talk about Ronan. Ronan is the brother of Kestrel’s best friend who also happens to be in love with her, she thinks. Kestrel feels like he is just trying to flatter her, but no, Ronan actually loves her. It was a bit annoying how much he liked her matter of fact. He came off as clingy and was not shy about how he felt about Kestrel. Honestly, I’m not sure how Kestrel was confused on whether or not his feelings were legitimate, he made it pretty clear.
Now that we have the things that irked me about the book out of the way… on to the things I loved!
Rutkoski made sure the reader knew every detail and the history behind how the Valorians got to power. I could almost feel the pain that the Herrani were going through based on the way the story was told. She explained how it felt to be oppressed, how it felt to be betrayed, and how guilt felt like all with just her own words. I also had a love/ ‘I kind of want to strangle you.’ relationship with all of her characters, which by the way are my favorite type of relationships I could have with any character. Kestrel is the personification of privilege and what being different feels like. Overall this book pretty much sums up the battle between the minority and their superiors and everything in between .
Theteenagedbibliophile 