The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1) by Marie Rutkoski

The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1) by Marie Rutkoski

4 stars

I’ve always wondered what is it about a romance in a book that really makes me believe in it. So this time I took careful care to notice every single hint, and they were all there. Not in a long while has a relationship felt so well built throughout a relatively short book. I loved how it evolved; I loved where it was left off at the end.

Both leads were very interesting characters. I really liked them both, though I admit there were some very prominent flaws. First of all, Arin’s behaviour was not very... slave-ish. I mean, I understand that Kestrel was very kind towards the slaves in her estate, but he has no way of knowing that until he gets to know her, so his actions were very careless and impulsive (considering his sole objective in that house was to be an inconspicuous spy for an upcoming revolution that relied exclusively on his contributions), and definitely called for harsher punishment in that society, as opposed to no punishment from Kestrel (a course of action from Kestrel’s part that didn’t always make sense in this context). But then, at the end, they both realize what they have to do to help the people they’re allied with, even if those alliances change repeatedly as the realize their true feelings for each other.

The writing and world building were both excellent. The story was wonderfully presented, and most importantly, everything that happened made so much sense. Every character’s actions felt justified according to their motivations, which were clear and very congruent with the situation in the empire. It was all very satisfying; a perfectly annoying cliffhanger-y ending for a perfect plot.

I can’t wait to read the next one.