No Books, No Life

For my first review I decided I will review one of my favorite books of all time, The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski. You can also read my Goodreads review right here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1164963006

This review is going to be a little bit different from that, not having the summary, and I'll go into more detail about what I loved and what I didn't like that much. To start out, I loved the main character, Kestrel. She is one of the most strong-willed, smart characters I have ever read about! No "Mary Sue" here! She could play games against grown-up men and win easily, and she could figure out things by herself before most people even start to think about it. Another thing I loved about this book is the love interest, Arin. He is one of the few people in the world who could beat Kestrel at the gambling games. They evened each other out, and I felt they brought out the best qualities in each other. Their relationship seemed real and heartfelt, and also very sad since they could never really be with each other since he is a slave that Kestrel bought at a slave market. Secretly, he used to be one of the main, prominent families of the Herran before the Valorians took over and made them slaves. I could really see his and Kestrel's relationship growing and how they slowly started to trust and love each other. The revelation towards the end of the book that he was one of the rebels trying to take back what is rightfully theirs should have ruined his and Kestrel's relationship, but if anything it showed how real it was and just assured the reader that it was heartfelt and how much it was worth it to the main characters,  especially when Arin lets Kestrel run free from Herrani and alert the Valorians of the slaves rebelling and killing many people. I felt that Kestrel agreeing to marry the Valorian prince so that the Herrani could have back their land also really shows her love for Arin since if she hadn't done that, him and the rest of the Herrani would have been killed right away. Even though he thinks she actually wants to marry the prince, it is still effective and will only help everyone in the long run.
This book was beautifully written. All of the sentences were very well thought out and you could tell the author put a LOT of effort into making her book the best it could be. I loved how every sentence made you think and also stayed interesting and entertaining. I would say the age group for this book is 12 and up. This book has a major, torturous cliffhanger, but the next book's ending is even worse! I'll probably be doing a review on that one next, so stay tuned for that!
5/5 Stars!!
Thanks for reading!
~Bri