Author: Marie Rutkoski
Published By: Farrar Straus Giroux
Publication Date: March 4, 2014
Pages: 355
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Format: Hardcover
Links: Goodreads, Book Depository
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.
The Writing: Quite lovely and descriptive. Rutkoski uses a lot of short sentences in her writing, which I found made it easier and quicker to read. She seems to have a knack for these beautifully crafted phrases. There was a good deal of world building in this first instalment but I wish it went just a little bit deeper. I'm hoping the world will develop even more in the next two books. I really liked how she identified that there was two different languages that helped to further segregate the two societies and she would make note of the differences in accent (like the rolling of r's). I sometimes got a bit confused when the war strategies were explained, but reading them over a second time makes things clearer.
The Plot: This is a very well thought out book. This book is very politically based which I very much enjoyed. It's quite interesting to see the inner workings of a society and their war strategies. This aspect especially picked up in the second half of the book in which we can see how the characters have such different ideas when it comes to strategies in both war and in governing a society. Perhaps my favourite part of this book is that there is no love triangle!! Love triangles in YA have become so overdone and so annoying that I feel myself rolling my eyes at every page. The romance in this is absolutely stunning and leaves you wanting more. There's no insta-love here either and it's nice to see the romance develop and blossom. One of the things I usually hate in books is when there is a dream sequence and the author puts in some drawn-out story/dream that is ambiguous but is supposedly meaningful for the main character's struggle and the plot of the book. Rutkoski does this towards the end of the book and I was very surprised at how much I liked it. The short story she constructs is interesting and engaging and is relevant to the story itself which I appreciated very much. The ending is also not super cliffhanger-y so I don't feel the need to run out and buy the second book (even though I probably will!).
The Characters: I love Kestrel as a main character. She's such a headstrong and smart female character. Even though she behaves differently from her other friends and the rest of society views her as being quite odd, Kestrel doesn't seem to care. She does what she wants to do because it makes her happy and I really admire that about her. She makes decisions based on what she wants, regardless of the consequences or the impolite stares she may get from the other upper class members of her society. Arin is also a lovely male counterpart. He is headstrong and analytical just like Kestrel. He has his goals and does not let anything get in the way of stopping them. The only thing that I wish Rutkoski would have included is more of a back story for Arin. There are minuscule snippets thrown in here and there but not enough to build a substantial history of who Arin was before the war. I loved how even the side characters had back stories especially Enai (who was Kestrel's nurse) was given a story that makes the reader really feel for her. While a lot of these characters had very rich stories, I'm hoping Rutkoski goes into greater depth of Arin's story in the second book.
Overall, I really really liked this book and I'm excited to go pick up the sequel! The story had me hooked and I read it in two days. I also love the cover and the sideways writing! That might be a bit random, but I think it looks really cool (unfortunately they've changed this for the the cover of the second book :( ). There was a lot of hype surrounding this book and I think it really lived up to it.
4.5/5
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