Review: The Winner’s Curse

The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So, the Winner’s Curse is another book I bought way back in July at YALC. It was a complete impulse buy, driven by the fact I’d just watched a panel with the book’s author, Marie Rutkoski, and I’d heard amazing things (but then again, YALC is just a huge festival of book recommendations). So I rushed on down from Olympia to Foyle’s Charing Cross and picked myself up a copy (along with Louise O’Neill’s Only Ever Yours and some books about writing fiction) but I haven’t got round to reading it until now.

First off, the cover for this book is beautiful. The vast majority of current editions use the same photo (the girl in a big pink dress), with slightly different formatting. This is a cover I want, no, need, on my shelf, and the formatting inside of the book is also gorgeous – I’m a huge fan of the black pages at the beginning and ends of the book in my copy, and the whole book is sleek and stylish. Strangely enough though, this delayed me reading the book. Beautiful books on the outside do not always equal beautiful books on the inside (on this occasion, I am delighted to be wrong).

The Winner’s Curse is the story of Kestrel and Arin. Kestrel is the general’s daughter, a 17 year old faced with the decision to either join the military or get married. On a whim, she purchases Arin, a young slave of the race her father conquered 10 years before. As Kestrel warms to Arin, she starts to realise that her impulse buy may have serious consequences…

Marie’s prose is beautiful, and the world is built up beautifully. This book is both fantastical and historical, which I love – I love how Marie takes a historical world (here one with a strong military and the presence of slavery and rebellion – based on the Greeks and the Romans I believe) and really expands it, with strong women and lavish balls and societal gossip. Personally, I love how there is no clear ‘good’ and ‘evil’ – every character has motives, beliefs and a fleshed-out back story, and this really helps the reader empathise with all the characters in the novel – it’s rare for a novel (especially a YA novel) to engage me with so many characters at once – and not to spoil anything, but there isn’t a particular side that I’m rooting for (as both sides are fighting for what they believe in, which conflict).

The characters aren’t only believable and fleshed-out, they’re also different. Kestrel is intelligent and cunning (not traits that are always apparent in female YA characters), and the relationship between Kestrel and Arin is developed slowly and subtly throughout the novel. However, I do have one gripe – the relationship between Kestrel and Arin is a little strange – he’s a slave with a secret and he just doesn’t act like it. He talks back, he’s sassy, and he walks all over Kestrel when he really shouldn’t be in the position to do so.

If you’re going to read any YA, make it good YA. This is good YA – mainly because the writing itself is beautiful (don’t underestimate the power of good writing). It’s not another YA rehash – it’s original and interesting, with intelligent characters who are really tested through power shifts and political turmoil. The world-building is done well – it’s subtle and understandable – and something YA does really well is light fantasy – just enough that you’re aware this is a different world but with human, relevant and relatable situations, and it never feels like you’ve just been thrown in at the deep end of this completely different world.

If you’re looking for something a little different, with interesting, political themes, forbidden romance, intelligent characters and which is, most of all, written fantastically, look no further.

I’m looking forward to completing the trilogy this coming year (The Winner’s Crime is out now, and The Winner’s Kiss will be released this March).

How did you find the novel? Is there anything you want to see more of in the coming novels? Tweet me @AnnaliseBooks or comment below!

Annalise x

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TBR 2016 : Personal Challenge Edition!

Updated: 24th April 2016 with books I have since read.

Hello!
It’s been a long time since my last post, mostly due to a lack of reading during university time. Reading just isn’t appealing to me at the moment, so I though I’d set myself some challenges over the next year to reduce my TBR pile and invigorate my reading.

Challenge 1: Kindle TBR

Using a Kindle really slowed down my reading, and I’m slowly making my way back to favouring a old-fashioned paper book. It’s so easy to stop reading a book on Kindle and forget about it – and I’ve abandoned quite a few books mid-read and left them there for a few months… ok, a few years.

This challenge is to read all the books that have been abandoned unread in the cloud.

1. Bright Young Things – Anna Godbersen
2. Superconductivity: A Very Short Introduction – Stephen Blundell
3. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
4. Bad Pharma – Ben Goldacre
5. Pushing The Limits – Katie McGarry
6. The Fiery Heart – Richelle Mead
7. Hard Bitten – Chloe Neill

Challenge 2: Finish ALL the series!

As well as abandoning books mid-read, I abandon series mid-series. I want to finish some series which have ended already, to achieve a sense of completeness (and so I can start some new series, naturally).

This challenge is to finish series that are worth finishing, and have already finished/will finish by the end of this year.

8. Night Huntress Series by Jeaniene Frost – One Grave at a Time, Up From the Grave

9. Bloodlines by Richelle Mead – The Fiery Heart, Silver Shadows, The Ruby Circle

10. Chicagoland Vampires by Chloe Neill – Hard Bitten, Drink Deep, Biting Cold, House Rules, Biting Bad, Wild Things, Blood Games, Dark Debt, Midnight Marked, Untitled… (This is definitely a challenge!)

11. Anna and the French Kiss series by Stephenie Perkins – Isla and the Happily Ever After

Challenge 3: Up To Date

There are a few series which have serious hype every time a new book comes out (Sarah J Mass, am I right?!) but I’m just not caught up with the latest book.

This challenge is to get up to date with series I’m seriously behind on, by the end of the year or the next release (whichever comes first).

12. Throne of Glass Series by Sarah J Maas – Crown of Midnight, Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows

13. Illuminae Series by Amie Kaufman – Gemina (released 2016)

14. Normal Series by Holly Bourne – How Hard Can Love Be? (released Feb 1st, 2016)

15. Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin – Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons…

Challenge 4: You’ve Bought ’em so You Might As Well Read ’em.

I’ve got loads of books which are looking very very pretty on my bookshelf. I should probably read them.

This challenge is to read all the books on my shelf currently, that haven’t been read.

16. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

17. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

18. The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski

19. Asking for It – Louise O’Neill

20. The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss

21. The Kingdom of Little Wounds – Susann Cokal

22. The Finisher – David Baldacci

23. The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson

24. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier

This post only really covers series I’ve already started or books I already own – there are loads of new books and series coming in 2016 that I’m looking forward to which will be covered in later posts.

Happy Holidays!

Annalise x

 

 

TBR: The Post-YALC Pile

After an amazing weekend at YALC, my TBR (To Be Read) pile has grown. It was already pretty big – I’ve spent the last three years procrastinating by buying books, but not really procrastinating by reading them (after many 16 hour days in the library trying to learn Chemistry, you kinda just want to sleep and eat). I’m planning on getting through my pile this Summer though (never going to happen but it’s always nice to be optimistic!).

1. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, and 2. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithian

I’ve read two John Green novels before – Looking for Alaska and The Fault in our Stars. They’re both critically acclaimed, and I thoroughly enjoyed TFioS… the second time I read it. I hardly ever read a book twice, but TFioS was a rare exception, and I’m glad it was – I enjoyed it the first time, and I really want to be a bigger fan of John Green’s work (hence the book buys). Both of these books have interesting premises – AAoK is about a boy called Colin who has dated a grand total of 19 women called Katherine, and WG,WG is a collaboration between two authors, both writing for different characters (both called Will Grayson). I really hope these books exceed my expectations based on previous John Green novels I’ve read – but I won’t deny i’ll be first in line for his next book.

3. Eleanor & Park, and 4. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Confession: I’ve never read a book by Rainbow Rowell. That’s about to change. All I’ve heard are good things about her novels, specifically these two, both published in 2013. Eleanor & Park is a love story, set in 1986, with Eleanor, the slightly overweight new girl with a dysfunctional family, and Park, a half-Korean boy from the ‘perfect home’. Fangirl is about identical twins, moving on to university, still obsessed with their favourite author. I’m excited to start reading these books, if only for the fact that I know people who fit these characters (an achievement in itself).

5. Forever by Judy Blume

I’ve heard about Judy Blume ever since I started reading YA fiction. She’s a legend, and this weekend, I got to watch her giving a talk at YALC. I would have asked her to sign a book, but I’ve never read a Judy Blume novel. I decided to rectify that. It is a feat in itself that this book is still a bestseller after forty years – and a little disappointing that it’s still controversial. I picked this up at the Waterstone’s book shop on site at YALC – hopefully it’ll be worth the £6.99 I forked out for it.

6. The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski

I first heard of the book a few months ago, and I knew I had to buy it. You know why? The cover. I knew I needed that cover on my shelf. I’ve also heard good things – about the plot, the world, the characters – and after attending a talk at YALC with Marie on the panel, I ran out and bought the book. Kestrel is a general’s daughter in an empire which enslaves those who it conquers, and she’s expected to either join the military or get married. Kestrel has other ideas. She buys a slave – Arin – with unexpected consequences, and finds herself falling in love with him.

7. Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill

I hadn’t heard of this book before YALC, and it only took two days before I caved and bought it – I’d heard so many good things (It won the YA Book Prize 2015). To my surprise (maybe I should plan better), the author (Louise O’Neill) appeared on the ‘Bringing Sexy Back’ panel in the morning, and, because I was hauling around all my purchases from the weekend, I happened to have my copy of Only Ever Yours on me, for the signing afterwards! I’m so excited to read this book, and ‘Asking for It’, out in September – mostly because of the comparisons to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

8. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

This was one of the books my friends bought for my birthday (I sent them a huge lists of books I promised not to buy and let them choose which ones to get). This originally was released in 2011, and it’s been sitting on my Goodreads list since then. Juliette’s touch is fatal, and she must decide whether to use it for good, or for evil. Also, look at that cover!

9. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I’ve known about Gone Girl for a few years, since the book first came out in 2012. I was there for the initial hype, and I was just never convinced enough to buy and read it. Then the film came out, and I went to see it. The film is amazing, and I knew the book would be too. I know all the twists and turns now, but I hear the book is even better, and the film will be tough to beat. Bring it on!

What’s on your TBR list? Have you read any of the books on my list? (I’m not going to lie, I imagine most people have.) Comment below or tweet me at @annalisebooks 🙂

Annalise x