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

5.0

After Twilight, it was decades before I found book of my dreams. An Ember in the Ashes. I didn't think I'd find another dream book so soon. In my own personal record time, 12 hours, I started and finished this f***ing amazing book. God damn!!! This book is amazing!!!

I loved Twilight to the point of obsession, simply because 01) it's heavy with deep romance, 02) it's fantasy. Yes, Twilight was problematic AF but I'm still a huge fan of it. After Twilight, fantasy books had romance, yes, but full of love triangles that I hated! Or relationships that fell off and another couple formed, forcing me to change shipping the previous couple (Yes, I mean Sarah J. Maas' book where I constantly had to change shipping a couple. Ugh!) But in here, in The Winner's Curse, it was obvious from the get go that Kestrel and Arin are the couple and will be till the end. I couldn't be happier. I also have a soft spot for star crossed lovers in fantasy 😍😍😍

Yes, this book is also not without problems. For example, I hated the part when the author said that eating with one's bare hands is a sign of savageness. It is not! Being a Bengali, that's an insult and I hated that. Also the book's portrayal of slavery, portraying the revolting Herrani slaves as antagonistic forces, was problematic. These are the only problems I perceived. Nevertheless, I love love love this book and will definitely finish the trilogy.