Wednesday, February 25, 2015

REVIEW: The Winner's Curse

     Hello fellows!

     As you can probably tell from my recent post, I finished The Winner's Curse while as you can tell from the title of this post, I'm currently reviewing it.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16069030-the-winner-s-curse?ac=1
The Winner's Curse
Title: The Winner's Curse
Author: Marie Rutkoski
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
Date Released: March 4, 2014
Number of Pages: 355
Summary:
Winning what you want may cost you everything you love

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions.

One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin.

But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.

Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your heart.


     As you can probably tell from my recent post, I finished The Winner's Curse while as you can tell from the title of this post, I'm currently reviewing it.
 
     I guess I could tell you that the book is set in another world. A world where the "Valorians" rule the area and the slaves are "Herrani". Valoria has conquered Herran and now the people who live there are housekeepers, blacksmiths, cooks, etc. Basically, they do anything and everything the Valorians refuse to do. The protagonist, Kestrel, is the daughter of the General who has greatly helped Valoria attack and succeed in attacking Herran. In simpler means, she's well-known and rich. By seventeen, she's given a choice of either marrying or joining the military. When Kestrel attends a slave auction, someone catches her eye. Before she knows it, she pays for him for an enormous sum of money and leaves with a new blacksmith, Arin. Buying the slave has consequences and it isn't just her who holds secrets and memories. Soon after, Kestrel suffers from another form of a consequence, love. As her feelings  for Arin grows, so does her stakes of losing. With this love, Kestrel learns: the price of love costs much more than that of a life.
 
     Overall, a 4.25 stars.
 
     The characters were well developed but I hoped a little more light onto the deuteragonists and tritagonists. I felt like I wanted to know more, about Enai, Jess, Ronan. We were given a good supply of events involving these characters but I noticed my desire to see more from them than as we were given. Also, there were multiple twists of events happening in the plot to keep the reader on the edge of their seat. I'd say, there were a few times where nothing significant was happening but of course that was short lived due to, as I said, changes in the scene and unsuspected happenings. We saw a majority of the book in Kestrel perspective as a Valorian but not so much in Arin as a Herrani. Don't get me wrong, we acknowledged many things that included Arin and the Herrani but I felt like we weren't given so much to compare with the Valorian point of view in the beginning of the book. All was resolved near the ending of the book (but of course I won't state how because this is still the non-spoiler section of the post). This book is 4-stars because of the creativity Marie Rutkoski used in writing it. I loved the style, not too many adjectives and adverbs to seem like I'm just reading words off the page but just enough to make me forget I'm actually reading, not watching a movie. The book creates a wonderful scene of images in your head and this isn't not rare. There is a scarce amount of authors who can achieve that level of writing.
 
     Well, that's it for the spoiler-free section of the post, if you haven't read the book yet and is still unconvinced in reading it, I don't care; read it anyways. I promise you, you won't be disappointed.
 
 

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