The Winner's Kiss by Marie Rutkoski
Memo to myself: If I ever discover a foreign continent, I will NOT allow people to keep their surnames if they choose to move there. In the Netherlands, everyone at least has their old boring names. It prevents me from reading three of your books and loving them and still being absolutely incapable of remembering whether it's Rutkoski or Rutkotski or Rutkostki.
Memo to author: If you ever read this, I'm dying to hear a.) where your name comes from and b.) whether you are working on another book series.
Quite relevant information that may or may not appear on every book review I'll be doing in the future:
Title: The Winner's Kiss
Author: Marie Rutkoski *sighs*
Series: The Winner's Trilogy #3
Pages: 484
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Publishing date: March 29th, 2016
Rating: 5 stars and still in recovery
Spotify playlist: The Winner's Kiss ('Bare' is my favorite for this one.)
Spotify playlist: The Winner's Kiss ('Bare' is my favorite for this one.)
Synopsis:
This is the third book in a series of which I have reviewed neither the first nor the second book. Naturally I can't just paste the summary in here. That would spoil it for you.
Spoiler free part:
Gah! This book series is so ridiculously beautiful. It's the first fantasy series I read (one year ago, to be precise) and it was a perfect place to start because it had a.) no magic and b.) great world building but not hardcore I-still-don't-know-the-names high fantasy epicness. Like, you don't need an encyclopedia to get everything straight. You just need your inner-fangirl and basic history knowledge regarding the Roman times, and you have the full experience.
I did encounter the familiar issue with reading a book a bazillion years after its predecessors.
Cheat? Jess? Ronan? Friend? Wait, spy? Tiger? (I loved the tiger.) I should remember this. I know I should.
This is the kind of book I looked forward to reading. I started on Sunday, and I walked around Monday, searching constantly for a free moment to read. I sat like, on drugs basically, at my desk at school, and in my head, I was like, "Fifteen more minutes and it's break. I can read in fifteen minutes, I will live."
This book series has a way of forcing me to throw all of my values out of the window. I become this fangirl-y heap of emotions to the point of protesting about plot building and politics. All I wanted was to swoon and see my little Herrani and Valorian together.
Spoiler-filled part:
I don't really have time anymore (yes school is stealing so much time I can't write reviews in one go), which is tragic, but I HAVE to talk about this story.
If you know me, you know that this book set me off at one point pretty bad. But that's okay. It is, because the next time this happens, I'll be prepared for that kind of shit.
Yes, folks, the greatest cliché of every last book has come with the plot fairy yet again and I COULDN'T BREATHE. I almost threw my book across the floor when my little baby Kestrel couldn't remember him. So, naturally, after this event, I started reading super fast.
And I got to the spoon part. Okay, that's a bit of a strange name, but the quotes that scene spawned are to die for. I just pictured her as innocence incarnate and him with this curt voice.
And, in retrospect, I love the memory loss. It gave me another chance to watch these two fall in love, and that was totally worth it. Which includes these wonderful events:
- countless conversations revisiting their previous meeting (which was practical since I'd forgotten them all).
- her sneaking to sleep in his bed.
- multiple quite hot scenes in which Arin persisted to tell her that he wanted her to love him like he loved her.
- YA fiction being one cave scene richer.
- this one part where Roshar says:
Brief thing about Arin:
If you hang around here often, you know I'm currently writing a story. Since that story has a male and female POV, I recently read this guide for writing guy POV in which it's mentioned that many female YA authors write male characters stereotyped and incorrectly. And now I realize how well-written Arin is with his vulnerability and his nervousness an incredibly human character. What I also like about him is how HE demands intimate emotional connection before committing to intimate physical connection. This is not something stereotypically associated with male characters.
Brief thing about Kestrel:
I love how she isn't some feisty warrior girl like all those heroines I've already read about. Her awesome character traits are her wits and her tactical insights, instead of just skills with a sword.
There's this obsession we have with female characters who fight monsters or men or monsters of men, often in the name of feminism. But the question is: does our prejudice that women can only be good when they are strong not forgo the very nature of feminism? The very idea of feminism and gender equality is that we accept people without putting them to these ridiculous standards. Writing good characters does not mean they should be warriors. Good characters only have to really be one thing: human. To the very core, they should be human, like you might know them.
Side note: 10/10 for writing great parent-child conflict right there.
Brief thing about the resolve of the amazing plot lines:
I was already secretly hoping that Mrs. Rutkoski would find a place for Bite and Sting in her climax and I was so happy when she did. I was really more concerned about the game than about the war at that point. And I did not expect the subtle inclusion of the poison at that point so that really impressed me.
Then there was Roshar's thing with Tiger Arin, which made me snort very loudly at 1 am. with my parents in the next room.
There's only one thing left to say, really.
This book series has a way of forcing me to throw all of my values out of the window. I become this fangirl-y heap of emotions to the point of protesting about plot building and politics. All I wanted was to swoon and see my little Herrani and Valorian together.
Spoiler-filled part:
I don't really have time anymore (yes school is stealing so much time I can't write reviews in one go), which is tragic, but I HAVE to talk about this story.
If you know me, you know that this book set me off at one point pretty bad. But that's okay. It is, because the next time this happens, I'll be prepared for that kind of shit.
Yes, folks, the greatest cliché of every last book has come with the plot fairy yet again and I COULDN'T BREATHE. I almost threw my book across the floor when my little baby Kestrel couldn't remember him. So, naturally, after this event, I started reading super fast.
And I got to the spoon part. Okay, that's a bit of a strange name, but the quotes that scene spawned are to die for. I just pictured her as innocence incarnate and him with this curt voice.
"Have we ever done this before?"
"No."I cracked up. I cracked up in the middle of a Sunday afternoon in my living room with my brother, my dad, and my mom.
And, in retrospect, I love the memory loss. It gave me another chance to watch these two fall in love, and that was totally worth it. Which includes these wonderful events:
- countless conversations revisiting their previous meeting (which was practical since I'd forgotten them all).
- her sneaking to sleep in his bed.
- multiple quite hot scenes in which Arin persisted to tell her that he wanted her to love him like he loved her.
- YA fiction being one cave scene richer.
- this one part where Roshar says:
"But I could've said something so much worse!"Which brings me to Roshar, my favorite gay character of all time. He just made me laugh so much. And his tiger is perfect. Arin's just this grumpy old man and Roshar's his teenage caretaker that makes sure he Arin doesn't die of his own anxiety.
Brief thing about Arin:
If you hang around here often, you know I'm currently writing a story. Since that story has a male and female POV, I recently read this guide for writing guy POV in which it's mentioned that many female YA authors write male characters stereotyped and incorrectly. And now I realize how well-written Arin is with his vulnerability and his nervousness an incredibly human character. What I also like about him is how HE demands intimate emotional connection before committing to intimate physical connection. This is not something stereotypically associated with male characters.
Brief thing about Kestrel:
I love how she isn't some feisty warrior girl like all those heroines I've already read about. Her awesome character traits are her wits and her tactical insights, instead of just skills with a sword.
There's this obsession we have with female characters who fight monsters or men or monsters of men, often in the name of feminism. But the question is: does our prejudice that women can only be good when they are strong not forgo the very nature of feminism? The very idea of feminism and gender equality is that we accept people without putting them to these ridiculous standards. Writing good characters does not mean they should be warriors. Good characters only have to really be one thing: human. To the very core, they should be human, like you might know them.
Side note: 10/10 for writing great parent-child conflict right there.
Brief thing about the resolve of the amazing plot lines:
I was already secretly hoping that Mrs. Rutkoski would find a place for Bite and Sting in her climax and I was so happy when she did. I was really more concerned about the game than about the war at that point. And I did not expect the subtle inclusion of the poison at that point so that really impressed me.
Then there was Roshar's thing with Tiger Arin, which made me snort very loudly at 1 am. with my parents in the next room.
There's only one thing left to say, really.
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