The Winner's Kiss by Marie Rutkoski
An excellent final book in the series! Marie Rutkoski was
not afraid to put her characters in dark, dangerous situations with the
odds stacked against them. She certainly didn't make things easy for
Kestrel and Arin. I also really appreciate the way she showed how
relationships are not neat, black-and-white, clean-cut things, but full
of uncertainty and emotions that don't necessarily make sense, and that
one may not want to even acknowledge.
I did think that the book
could have been tightened somewhat; the first half became somewhat
repetitive in its exploration of Kestrel and Arin's relationship, and
the second half had a few too many battle (and battle preparation)
scenes for my liking. (Battle scenes are always quite hard for me to
picture, and so they don't do all that much for me as a reader.)
I
thought it was clever the way the climactic scene was structured, split
between what Kestrel was involved in and what Arin was up to (and plus,
I liked how Kestrel's plan involved an element introduced earlier in
the book). Also, the opening part of the book, detailing the treatment
of Kestrel in the mines (and the psychological toll of that), really
made me feel for her and was a way to create conflict in the
Kestrel/Arin relationship without relying on a cliche such as a love
triangle or "star-crossed lovers."
One thing I would have liked
would have been more discussion of the whole issue of slavery; this
largely seems to get dropped from the narrative, given the pressing
issue of the war going on, but given how very recently the Herrani had
been slaves to the Valorians, I think realistically that tensions
surrounding that would have been high.
