The Winner's Kiss
It’s always with a melancholy feeling you put the last book in a series down. For me, today was the day when I finished Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Trilogy with the final installment, The Winner’s Kiss. It was with a heavy feeling that I shut the book and put it down and it is with a heavy feeling I sit here writing this. It’s always hard to say goodbye to something you love, even if I know it’s not goodbye forever, and The Winner’s series is certainly no exception.
At the end of The Winner’s Crime, Arin has left the imperial palace and the capital of Valoria to return to Herran to fight for his country, in the belief that Kestrel never cared one bit for him. Kestrel, meanwhile, has been Arin’s secret spy for months and tells him so in a letter which ends up in the wrong set of hands. Instead of earning Arin’s forgiveness and his love, Kestrel is disowned by her father, shunned by her emperor and sent to the prison camp far out on the tundra as punishment. This is where The Winner’s Kiss takes off. Kestrel is locked away, given a drug that makes her forget herself while clinging to the hope that the last clue she sent to Arin will reach him and that he will come and save her. Arin, certain that Kestrel has betrayed him yet again, goes back to Herran to prepare for war against Valoria. Their love is as broken as their countries, but Arin is determined to fight for Herran and his people. Will he fight for Kestrel, too? And Kestrel, can she ever forgive what was done to her or will she rise up against the country that turned its back on her – if she ever makes it out of the camp alive?
The foundation of this book had every chance of setting up the reader for quite a ride. After the horrible cliffhanger in The Winner’s Crime, we’re left wondering if Kestrel can manage to sneak out of a prison camp and if Arin will ever get himself together and realize that whatever Kestrel did was always only to protect him. I longed for The Winner’s Kiss to reach my hands and it felt slightly surreal when I finally had it within reach. I jumped into it with mixed feelings – excited and nervous, curious and afraid. Would it end the way I wanted to or would it be a huge disappointment? Now that I’ve finished I can say that the biggest disappointment was actually how I lost grasp of the story after a while.
I loved the first two installments immensely and read them in a few days, only a couple of months apart. The Winner’s Kiss I’ve waited for since late spring last year and I haven’t reread either previous book in the series during the wait, nor in the anticipation of the release of the final part. Maybe I should’ve, not because I had forgotten everything (although there were parts I frowned at and which felt fuzzy, but Rutkoski nicely weaved in reminders for me along the way), but rather that I forgot the way Rutkoski wrote. I remember loving it, thinking it was different and fresh yet poetic and beautiful. Because it’s been a while since I read the previous two books I can’t say if I’ve changed or if Rutkoski’s way of writing has. It felt different this time nonetheless, at times more childish, at times rushed and at other times almost cold and chopped off. The characters felt colder and I had a harder time connecting to them.
The book is written in third person, seen from both Arin and Kestrel’s eyes, which usually is done in alternating chapters. But here, when so much happened, Rutkoski chose to, at times, write one paragraph from Arin’s view and the next from Kestrel’s, separating them with one row of blank space. That meant that you as the reader saw the events unfolded from both perspective practically at the same time, but it left me confused at times. Not that I lost track of which character’s thoughts I was following, but rather that it changed so fast so often that I had a hard time gripping at the events that was happening. It felt like we were just jumping back and forth and though I see Rutkoski’s intention and the way she wants to give the reader two views of every situation I found it exhausting at times and would have preferred if Arin got one chapter and Kestrel another, or that they at least would’ve gotten more than a few sentences at a time to explain what was happening and how they felt.
Very few new characters are introduced, which I wasn’t particularly fond of. I wished for the entry of one new, powerful character who could take the story with storm. Instead we’re left with basically the same set as the ones we met in the previous two books. Arin and Kestrel along with Kestrel’s father, the General, the emperor and his son, the queen, prince and princess of Dacra and a few other characters that appears only to disappear again. While I truly loved the prince of Dacra’s involvement – and his sassiness – I got a bit bored when no one new came along to shake things up.
Over all, The Winner’s Kiss was surprisingly more boring than I thought it would be. I was expecting excitement and action, in the same cool, calm style of the previous two books, and while The Winner’s Kiss didn’t lack action, it still manages to fall short. The action scenes never made me fear for the main characters life and I saw through every trick and every scheme to know the outcome before it happened. It was disappointing because I was hoping for something that would sweep me of my feet or make me gasp out loudly, but nothing did.
I still love the story and I’m not angry at how it ended – although I do feel like we were left with quite a few big question marks – but I’m not as happy with it as I hoped in advance. My standard may be high, but so is Rutkoski’s writing, and I expected more from her. I’m certain I will return to this series in the future and that I will read The Winner’s Kiss again, but right at this moment I’m left with a sad feeling that has nothing to do with the fact that the series is over and everything to do with the fact that I expected more and am not entirely pleased. However, I do feel like you should give these books a try because they are good and while not every aspect of the story is new it still sets you up for an entertaining read in a well-crafted world with (mostly) rich characters and fresh writing.
At the end of The Winner’s Crime, Arin has left the imperial palace and the capital of Valoria to return to Herran to fight for his country, in the belief that Kestrel never cared one bit for him. Kestrel, meanwhile, has been Arin’s secret spy for months and tells him so in a letter which ends up in the wrong set of hands. Instead of earning Arin’s forgiveness and his love, Kestrel is disowned by her father, shunned by her emperor and sent to the prison camp far out on the tundra as punishment. This is where The Winner’s Kiss takes off. Kestrel is locked away, given a drug that makes her forget herself while clinging to the hope that the last clue she sent to Arin will reach him and that he will come and save her. Arin, certain that Kestrel has betrayed him yet again, goes back to Herran to prepare for war against Valoria. Their love is as broken as their countries, but Arin is determined to fight for Herran and his people. Will he fight for Kestrel, too? And Kestrel, can she ever forgive what was done to her or will she rise up against the country that turned its back on her – if she ever makes it out of the camp alive?
The foundation of this book had every chance of setting up the reader for quite a ride. After the horrible cliffhanger in The Winner’s Crime, we’re left wondering if Kestrel can manage to sneak out of a prison camp and if Arin will ever get himself together and realize that whatever Kestrel did was always only to protect him. I longed for The Winner’s Kiss to reach my hands and it felt slightly surreal when I finally had it within reach. I jumped into it with mixed feelings – excited and nervous, curious and afraid. Would it end the way I wanted to or would it be a huge disappointment? Now that I’ve finished I can say that the biggest disappointment was actually how I lost grasp of the story after a while.
I loved the first two installments immensely and read them in a few days, only a couple of months apart. The Winner’s Kiss I’ve waited for since late spring last year and I haven’t reread either previous book in the series during the wait, nor in the anticipation of the release of the final part. Maybe I should’ve, not because I had forgotten everything (although there were parts I frowned at and which felt fuzzy, but Rutkoski nicely weaved in reminders for me along the way), but rather that I forgot the way Rutkoski wrote. I remember loving it, thinking it was different and fresh yet poetic and beautiful. Because it’s been a while since I read the previous two books I can’t say if I’ve changed or if Rutkoski’s way of writing has. It felt different this time nonetheless, at times more childish, at times rushed and at other times almost cold and chopped off. The characters felt colder and I had a harder time connecting to them.
The book is written in third person, seen from both Arin and Kestrel’s eyes, which usually is done in alternating chapters. But here, when so much happened, Rutkoski chose to, at times, write one paragraph from Arin’s view and the next from Kestrel’s, separating them with one row of blank space. That meant that you as the reader saw the events unfolded from both perspective practically at the same time, but it left me confused at times. Not that I lost track of which character’s thoughts I was following, but rather that it changed so fast so often that I had a hard time gripping at the events that was happening. It felt like we were just jumping back and forth and though I see Rutkoski’s intention and the way she wants to give the reader two views of every situation I found it exhausting at times and would have preferred if Arin got one chapter and Kestrel another, or that they at least would’ve gotten more than a few sentences at a time to explain what was happening and how they felt.
Very few new characters are introduced, which I wasn’t particularly fond of. I wished for the entry of one new, powerful character who could take the story with storm. Instead we’re left with basically the same set as the ones we met in the previous two books. Arin and Kestrel along with Kestrel’s father, the General, the emperor and his son, the queen, prince and princess of Dacra and a few other characters that appears only to disappear again. While I truly loved the prince of Dacra’s involvement – and his sassiness – I got a bit bored when no one new came along to shake things up.
Over all, The Winner’s Kiss was surprisingly more boring than I thought it would be. I was expecting excitement and action, in the same cool, calm style of the previous two books, and while The Winner’s Kiss didn’t lack action, it still manages to fall short. The action scenes never made me fear for the main characters life and I saw through every trick and every scheme to know the outcome before it happened. It was disappointing because I was hoping for something that would sweep me of my feet or make me gasp out loudly, but nothing did.
I still love the story and I’m not angry at how it ended – although I do feel like we were left with quite a few big question marks – but I’m not as happy with it as I hoped in advance. My standard may be high, but so is Rutkoski’s writing, and I expected more from her. I’m certain I will return to this series in the future and that I will read The Winner’s Kiss again, but right at this moment I’m left with a sad feeling that has nothing to do with the fact that the series is over and everything to do with the fact that I expected more and am not entirely pleased. However, I do feel like you should give these books a try because they are good and while not every aspect of the story is new it still sets you up for an entertaining read in a well-crafted world with (mostly) rich characters and fresh writing.