Tag: romance

YA

Review: The Winner’s Kiss by Marie Rutkoski

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: The Winner’s Trilogy #3

the winner's kiss -marie rutkoskiSome kisses come at a price.

War has begun. Arin is in the thick of it with untrustworthy new allies and the empire as his enemy. Though he has convinced himself that he no longer loves Kestrel, Arin hasn’t forgotten her, or how she became exactly the kind of person he has always despised. She cared more for the empire than she did for the lives of innocent people—and certainly more than she did for him.

At least, that’s what he thinks.

In the frozen north, Kestrel is a prisoner in a brutal work camp. As she searches desperately for a way to escape, she wishes Arin could know what she sacrificed for him. She wishes she could make the empire pay for what they’ve done to her.

But no one gets what they want just by wishing.

As the war intensifies, both Kestrel and Arin discover that the world is changing. The East is pitted against the West, and they are caught in between. With so much to lose, can anybody really win?

 

3.5 Drink Me Potions

I honestly may have expected too much from this book. The Winner’s Kiss is the dramatic conclusion of the Winner’s Trilogy, filled with battles and Kestrel’s cunning wit to outsmart her homeland’s emperor and entire kingdom. Including her father, the general.

It picks up right where the previous book left off, thank goodness. What with all the incessant misunderstandings in the previous novel, I was starting to think that nothing could ever get rid of that underlying frustration I get whenever Arin and Kestrel are near each other.

So with abated breath, the story continues with Kestrel hauled off to the Middle of Nowhere as a prisoner of war. Shocker. Her father betrayed her.

I have always loved Rutkoski for her ability to still weave a great story without the unnecessary drama of a love triangle. Yes, the amount of misunderstandings was overwhelming but in a different way. However, the obstacle that keeps our two favourite people apart this time was unexpected and kind of brilliant in its own rights. I had wished that, as the title states, Kestrel better get that darn kiss she so deserves, and Rutkoski doesn’t disappoint in that either. I won’t ruin any of the romantic nuisances of it, but I think it can be satisfactory even for the harshest critics out there. It satisfied me, after all, and I most definitely criticized this.

Along with the much awaited reunion and final understanding between them, the story also spiked up in action. With allies from another kingdom come to help, they may actually stand a chance against the forces of Valoria. I wouldn’t say the book lacked in any suspense, but at times, it just felt a little slow to me when the army’s moving from this place to that while assessing the dangers from all fronts. Sure, that’s Kestrel’s thing, but it didn’t help pick up the pace any more.

What could have possibly added to this bit of slowness was the way Rutkoski writes. I do enjoy the way she can poetically describe a scene. It’s not all that colloquial or conversational. It’s great. To an extent. This kind of writing also makes me feel, as the reader, a little more detached emotionally from everything that’s going on. We move from what Kestrel’s feeling, and then to Arin, and back. All in a couple of sentences. My heart just wasn’t as invested into it as I could have been, I suppose. This may just be something up with me though.

All in all, this conclusion was satisfactory, in particular the ending. It ended off with a twist right up Kestrel’s alley and I was left hooting for joy at the way it all was splendidly handled.

Overall Recommendation:
Written in the beautifully poetic prose that’s come to be expected by Rutkoski, The Winner’s Kiss somewhat lives up to its name and provides a resounding conclusion both in battle and in love for our protagonists Kestrel and Arin. I wanted to love it more, but the occasional slowness to the plot and emotional detachment made it hard. Overall, the story provides everything that Rutkoski promised: retribution for the Herrani and an epic adventure that Kestrel and Arin lead us through.

YA

Review: The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: The Winner’s Trilogy #2

the winner's crime -marie rutkoski

Book two of the dazzling Winner’s Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love.

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement… if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.

 

2.5 Drink Me Potions

Kestrel’s adventures continue with The Winner’s Crime. Unfortunately, this one didn’t sit as well with me.

As you might come to expect of our dear protagonist, Kestrel’s cunning and oh so very smart. Where we left off from the previous novel, she’s in a dire predicament and her love, Arin, has no idea of what she’s done for him and his people’s sakes. Oh how I wanted to tear down a building in my frustration at that.

Here they were. Just about to really figure out that they loved each other, or that they could believe in each others’ feelings, but things tore them apart and now there are just HEAPS of misunderstanding.

This whole NOVEL is based on misunderstandings galore . From one encounter to the next, it’s like realizing the potential and strength of their love for one another is just on the tip of one of their tongues but SOMETHING, oh my goodness there’s always something, keeps them from confessing it or explaining their noble actions.

I won’t say that The Winner’s Crime suffers from Middle Book Syndrome. It doesn’t. There’s plenty of under-the-table kind of suspense building as kingdoms teeter on the brink of war. Alliances are made and broken. Where Kestrel and Arin stand as their worlds are about to fall apart may determine the outcome of their survival and their love’s survival.

But none of that CLOSURE happens in here. It’s like, so near the end, and I thought, YES, they’ve finally come to their senses about each other , only to have that dream dashed on the rocks. Kestrel’s got things up her sleeves that only her brain can really truly understand, but Arin, in his hurt, may ruin them all. So the kind of action and suspense in this middle book isn’t all-out fighting like its predecessor, yet it was still fascinating to see the heart of Valoria and the dark plots being hatched there.

I will end with this. The Winner’s Kiss better have a TON of making up between Aren and Kestrel. ‘Cause I’ve just about HAD it with their endless misunderstandings. I guess it’s one way of keeping up the romantic suspense without adding in a love triangle. I will, grumbling aside, acknowledge my thanks to Rutkoski for that fact.

Overall Recommendation:
The Winner’s Crime began where the previous book left off with our favourite cunning Kestrel trying to manipulate things from the heart of Valoria. However, she’s playing a dangerous game and the suspense racks up as we see how the dominoes may tumble from her actions. Meanwhile, the romantic suspense is just about killing me as Arin is bitter and has no idea of what Kestrel’s done for him. Where there seems to be moments and chances for reconciliation between the two, it never quite reaches that point in this book, thereby dashing away a higher rating and making me wanna hit my head against a brick wall. I will say you gotta read this (or at least skim this) as there’s essential plot twists here, but otherwise, I would save my breath for the final conclusion.

YA

Review: Starflight by Melissa Landers

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Starflight #1

starflight -melissa landersLife in the outer realm is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She’s so desperate to reach the realm that she’s willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith.

When a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious repute, Doran learns he’s been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives, but the existence of everyone in the universe…

 

3.5 Drink Me Potions

Starflight was a cute story of a girl who just wanted freedom from a life full of unfair situations but instead finds herself dragged into a grand adventure around the galaxies upon meeting an old rival from school.

The book was full of witty and fun banter, something I’ve come to appreciate from Landers. Solara was understandably tough, but not as tough of a character as I would have thought from the synopsis. She hated her felony tattoos on her hands and it was understandable, as an orphan with no one who really cared about her, to want to escape into a place where she could be her own person without a worry in the world.

Meanwhile, her love interest, Doran, originally came off as that annoying golden boy who gets everything kinda stereotype. He really fit that bill. He gains a more original personality later on that makes you like him more, but at the end of the day, the same can be said for him as well. Both him and Solara were characters I grew to like, but not people I grew to connect with or even love , which is important for main characters in good stories.

The secondary characters had interesting personalities that made them special and fun to see how they interacted with each other. They each had a back story, although some weren’t as fleshed out as they could have been, which would have made them more solid and real in my books than just the label you put on them. For example, the first mate was a bespectacled kleptomaniac, but if he’s only defined by that label, it doesn’t necessarily make him all that special or real. He as a whole person would need more than just that one thing, no matter how interesting, to make a good character whose purpose isn’t only to just enhance Solara and Doran’s story.

The pacing set me off a little too. It wasn’t slow necessarily. Things are always happening for the ragtag crew on board the space craft Banshee. But it wasn’t necessarily intense. The plot didn’t really build up for most of the book until maybe the last 60 pages or so. Like, sure, someone’s chasing them. They escape. They go somewhere else in space. Whoopee.

The romance was interesting. Doran was truly awful in the beginning, so it was enjoyable to see the gradual change in their interpersonal dynamics. It wasn’t insta-love. They went from rivals/enemies to cohorts and acquaintances to finally friends and people who loved one another. It took time and certain events to drive forward those feelings. It was nice, don’t get me wrong. It just didn’t induce intense heart-pounding feelings in me. At the end of the day, I just didn’t find myself as invested in the outcome as I normally would be in romances that initially seemed hard to come by for the characters.

Overall, Starflight was definitely an enjoyable read. The ending wasn’t a cliffhanger or anything. It ended pretty much on a happy note. The characters don’t necessarily change the world or have everything solved for their individual problems, so unless resolution is a key component for you to enjoy a novel, it was nice. But nice only goes so far and it just seemed to be lacking something that may just be a personal preference.

Overall Recommendation:
Starflight was a fun sci-fi book that definitely had stuff going on for the main characters and even the side characters. However, beyond the easy read and amusing banter between a unique group of friends, it was just missing some suspense throughout the middle that would’ve driven a higher rating, even though plenty of “action” was going on. These events just fizzled out too quickly and shifted from one to the other without racking enough excitement linking them all together. The romance was enjoyable and cute, but it too seemed to lack a certain element to invest more emotion from the reader into them. Overall, it was a nice plot and story that I liked, but did not love.