A review by abbyl819
The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski

4.0

While I did enjoy this book overall, I had quite a few problems with it. The first of these was the pacing of the book. In the beginning, it started off very slow, speed up a bit, became slow again, and then was super fast and rushed until it just ended. I felt like a lot of ideas and plot points were missed that could have been really interesting. I also didn't really enjoy the characters. Most of them were very static, but others, such as Kestrel and Arin, switched sides so often that I am still having difficulty figuring out which side they're truly on. I also thought that it was unrealistic that a Valorian like Kestrel would just surrender and help the enemy like she did for the Herrani without a clear cut plan that would go into affect soon after that would outweigh the damage she did. I really wished that Jess and Ronan had a bigger part in the book. They were presented as very close to the main character, only to be essentially dropped for the whole rest of the book after the ball. I think, given the opportunity, they could have been awesome characters and to wish that we would have seen more of them. Lastly, I didn't like the relationship between Kestrel and Arin. It seemed like it was very forced and very much so followed along the lines of the forbidden romance trope. They also both betrayed each other so many times that I found it hard to believe that anyone would have still trusted or liked the other.