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A review by bookph1le
The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski
1.0
Well, that was disappointing. After all the hype I've heard about it, I expected more. I am such an anomaly, apparently. I never seem to like the books everyone else raves over. And the cover? It's another girl in a princess dress. I'm bored. Complete review to come.
Full review:
I finished reading The Winner's Curse several days ago, and the more time that passes, the more inconsistencies I see in it. This book is getting a lot of attention and hype, and I admit that I do not understand why this is. The writing is pretty good, but this book suffers from so many tropes and so much nonsensical logic that I find I like it less the more distance I have from it. Since my major problem with the book stems from events in the plot, there will be some huge spoilers in this review, so don't read any further if you don't want key elements revealed to you. I prefer not to spoil things in my reviews, but in this case there's no avoiding it.
My first problem with this book is Kestral. She felt like something of an empty shell to me, probably because I never got a good feel for her psychology. My other issue with her is due to her erratic decisions and actions. One minute she's fired up about something, but the next she gives in when she shouldn't. She's also a very odd mixture of bold and feisty yet meek and submissive. I think because she seems so directionless and so unaware of her privilege I really couldn't get behind her. She also has a little of perfection about her in that, even though she has ostentatious "flaws", she's still pretty awesome in general. She doesn't really mess up much, or when she does the reader is supposed to feel sympathetic and not really blame her for it, which I found odd. She came across as a spoiled rich girl to me, and I never got the sense that she really grew, so it was hard for me to care about her. Plus, for all her supposed cleverness, she proves very thick near the end of the book, which made me shake my head in disgust.
I liked Arin better, but I didn't like the characterization of him. Look, Arin is a slave living under the thumb of an oppressive regime. He's seen his country taken from its people, pillaged by a greedy empire lacking all human empathy, and watched friends and family be killed or turned into possessions. He has every reason to be angry, to want to rebel, and to react as he does, and I find it hard to believe that readers wouldn't get this. So why does the author feel the need to provide loopholes for him? It's as if she's afraid he'll be interpreted as evil when it makes no sense at all to see him as evil, given what he and his countrymen have been through. Really, the reason this is done is so that Kestral won't hate him and will still feel angsty about him, which is just such a cop out to me. I'd have preferred for her to hate him or to have to struggle with bad feelings about him and rise above them, but all of that tension is removed.
This leads me to my biggest issue with this book. Never mind that her reputation is in tatters, something that should matter a WHOLE lot more to her than it does. When Kestral finds out that Arin has betrayed her, she's angry. That makes sense. But then, instead of doing anything about it, she pretty much submits to becoming a prisoner in his house. Sure, she makes some attempts to escape, but they're feeble at best, especially since she's supposedly such a brilliant strategist. As I said, I don't think Arin is a bad character for what he does, but it would make sense that, from Kestral's perspective, he's a bad, bad dude. She's been drinking the Kool-Aid of her empire her whole life, her father holds a prominent position in it, and a lot of Valorian civilians are slaughtered in the rebellion. Yet Kestral mopes around about how much she lurves Arin. No, just no. Her sense of betrayal should have run so deep that she'd immediately run to the emperor and tell him what happened. Instead, she hangs around in Arin's house making out with him. I could understand her having conflicted feelings, but I cannot believe that she wouldn't feel an all-consuming sense of rage and loathing when she first finds out that he was spying on her and her father and using the information he gained to help organize the rebellion. I could buy that sense cooling with time and distance, but not while she's still with Arin, especially since she still fails to really get his perspective by this late in the game. Not to mention that the two of them have only just admitted their attraction to one another and have spent precious little time together. How could she already love him enough that she wouldn't want vengeance?
And here's where the author gives Arin several outs. For one, neither Jess nor Ronan are killed by the poisoned wine, which makes no logical sense at all and is clearly done just to make sure Arin doesn't look too much like a bad guy, because then there'd be no reason at all for Kestral not to go crazy on him. That would wreck havoc with the romance, though, so we can't have that, can we? Then, the author takes Cheat and turns him into a would-be rapist, and of course Arin saves the day just in the nick of time.
Here I must pause for a moment to send a message to every author: Do NOT use rape as a plot device. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. It's lazy writing and it's just plain wrong. I'm not saying you can't write about rape, but if you're going to do so, it needs to be done in a thoughtful manner and NOT as a means of allowing the hero to swoop in for the rescue, thereby proving what a standup sort of guy he is. I absolutely loathe when authors or TV shows or movies or video games toss rape into the mix as a way of illustrating how awesome the hero is. It minimizes the impact that rape has on people.
When I first finished reading, I wanted to give this book two stars because the writing is solid and the world building was excellent. I had a clear sense of the world, and the author weaves a lot of politics and social structure into the novel, providing a strong sense of place. But these good qualities aren't enough to redeem the glaring flaws, flaws so glaring that they destroy the foundations of the entire book. In the end, I can only give this book one star because I can poke so many holes into it that nothing more than Swiss cheese remains.
Full review:
I finished reading The Winner's Curse several days ago, and the more time that passes, the more inconsistencies I see in it. This book is getting a lot of attention and hype, and I admit that I do not understand why this is. The writing is pretty good, but this book suffers from so many tropes and so much nonsensical logic that I find I like it less the more distance I have from it. Since my major problem with the book stems from events in the plot, there will be some huge spoilers in this review, so don't read any further if you don't want key elements revealed to you. I prefer not to spoil things in my reviews, but in this case there's no avoiding it.
My first problem with this book is Kestral. She felt like something of an empty shell to me, probably because I never got a good feel for her psychology. My other issue with her is due to her erratic decisions and actions. One minute she's fired up about something, but the next she gives in when she shouldn't. She's also a very odd mixture of bold and feisty yet meek and submissive. I think because she seems so directionless and so unaware of her privilege I really couldn't get behind her. She also has a little of perfection about her in that, even though she has ostentatious "flaws", she's still pretty awesome in general. She doesn't really mess up much, or when she does the reader is supposed to feel sympathetic and not really blame her for it, which I found odd. She came across as a spoiled rich girl to me, and I never got the sense that she really grew, so it was hard for me to care about her. Plus, for all her supposed cleverness, she proves very thick near the end of the book, which made me shake my head in disgust.
I liked Arin better, but I didn't like the characterization of him. Look, Arin is a slave living under the thumb of an oppressive regime. He's seen his country taken from its people, pillaged by a greedy empire lacking all human empathy, and watched friends and family be killed or turned into possessions. He has every reason to be angry, to want to rebel, and to react as he does, and I find it hard to believe that readers wouldn't get this. So why does the author feel the need to provide loopholes for him? It's as if she's afraid he'll be interpreted as evil when it makes no sense at all to see him as evil, given what he and his countrymen have been through. Really, the reason this is done is so that Kestral won't hate him and will still feel angsty about him, which is just such a cop out to me. I'd have preferred for her to hate him or to have to struggle with bad feelings about him and rise above them, but all of that tension is removed.
This leads me to my biggest issue with this book. Never mind that her reputation is in tatters, something that should matter a WHOLE lot more to her than it does. When Kestral finds out that Arin has betrayed her, she's angry. That makes sense. But then, instead of doing anything about it, she pretty much submits to becoming a prisoner in his house. Sure, she makes some attempts to escape, but they're feeble at best, especially since she's supposedly such a brilliant strategist. As I said, I don't think Arin is a bad character for what he does, but it would make sense that, from Kestral's perspective, he's a bad, bad dude. She's been drinking the Kool-Aid of her empire her whole life, her father holds a prominent position in it, and a lot of Valorian civilians are slaughtered in the rebellion. Yet Kestral mopes around about how much she lurves Arin. No, just no. Her sense of betrayal should have run so deep that she'd immediately run to the emperor and tell him what happened. Instead, she hangs around in Arin's house making out with him. I could understand her having conflicted feelings, but I cannot believe that she wouldn't feel an all-consuming sense of rage and loathing when she first finds out that he was spying on her and her father and using the information he gained to help organize the rebellion. I could buy that sense cooling with time and distance, but not while she's still with Arin, especially since she still fails to really get his perspective by this late in the game. Not to mention that the two of them have only just admitted their attraction to one another and have spent precious little time together. How could she already love him enough that she wouldn't want vengeance?
And here's where the author gives Arin several outs. For one, neither Jess nor Ronan are killed by the poisoned wine, which makes no logical sense at all and is clearly done just to make sure Arin doesn't look too much like a bad guy, because then there'd be no reason at all for Kestral not to go crazy on him. That would wreck havoc with the romance, though, so we can't have that, can we? Then, the author takes Cheat and turns him into a would-be rapist, and of course Arin saves the day just in the nick of time.
Here I must pause for a moment to send a message to every author: Do NOT use rape as a plot device. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. It's lazy writing and it's just plain wrong. I'm not saying you can't write about rape, but if you're going to do so, it needs to be done in a thoughtful manner and NOT as a means of allowing the hero to swoop in for the rescue, thereby proving what a standup sort of guy he is. I absolutely loathe when authors or TV shows or movies or video games toss rape into the mix as a way of illustrating how awesome the hero is. It minimizes the impact that rape has on people.
When I first finished reading, I wanted to give this book two stars because the writing is solid and the world building was excellent. I had a clear sense of the world, and the author weaves a lot of politics and social structure into the novel, providing a strong sense of place. But these good qualities aren't enough to redeem the glaring flaws, flaws so glaring that they destroy the foundations of the entire book. In the end, I can only give this book one star because I can poke so many holes into it that nothing more than Swiss cheese remains.