The Winner's Kiss Book Review

The Winner's Kiss by Marie Rutkoski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

preview **
Finally got the Book !! *happy dance*
All thanks to my fairy Godmother , my very beautiful friend Emer !
OMG Emer , you've just made my day ! *Lovelovelove*




EDIT***

Actual Rating : 4.5 stars





The Writing style of the series ! its a spun fabric woven perfectly with Golden meaning
it conveys much more than its actually written
Marie Rutkoski , what are u made of ?
this book is a sophisticated poem
This series is poetry that tells the story of love and sacrifice and forgiveness ..

its packed with gamble , with excitement and cliffhanger(ish) moments
its never predictable , you would be farewelling the characters at the beginning of every battle , zero aware of their destiny out of it ..
so much metaphor , the tension rises slowly , the dialogue is well written . funny at times "epigrammatic " * when Roshar is around * then sad or thoughtful .
what matters is that it was highly expressive .


this series is going to put me into a reading slump
sometimes you read some story and you love it too dearly that you don't want to move on
i already was in a reading slump after the winner's crime
i didn't have this book
do you imagine how i felt ? you cant ..
i searched every book store , i tried the libraries Facebook pages and i tried using amazon which i am awful at these computer things .
i was almost in despair when Emer sent me the book
that made me too happy that i didn't recognize how i wanted to know the The Winner's Crime sequel until i got it ..
i had the book and at some point i was afraid to read it , afraid that things may go wrong .
but i did read it dare i not ?

and maybe At some point it didn't feel the same , may be its not 5 stars after all .
Somewhere after kestrel losing memory till the emperor's death
kestrel changed , but she told us , she told Arin ... Still it didnt feel ... The word , i cant grasped it but you know what i mean .
I felt at some point that the perfection blanket i was warped in reading the winner's crime thinned ..
But then came the end and i was suddenly too emotional
Marie Rutkoski had written

The close of a series is a strange place to inhabit: a kind of nimbus of sadness and excitement.

so yes , i even read the author's note ..
and this line descries my feelings
I love this story
There are some stories that carve something inside you
A new lens added to your vision when observing the world
I shudder when i think that when a non-reader reads such words , wont feel them fully , would think they are mere words of no underlying depth , wont understand how it feels because they've never experienced it
Good series always give me this feeling , This gratefulness
That i have the books , that i am educated enough to read them , and lucky enough to find the time , and graced enough that the sight of a book thrills me
Otherwise i would have never knew kestrel , never knew Arin , never read their story

His brain had been a glass ball. Nothing in it but echoes. His mother’s scent. Father’s voice. How Anireh’s gaze had held him from across the room, and her eyes said, Survive. They said, Love, and
I’m sorry. They said, Little brother

Arin , i lived this character too deeply i still remember the feeling i had reading the night of Invasion , i shivered , WAR .. it takes too much , destroys and mars
my teacher had written on my review of the winner's curse u seem taken by this book as it get u up with some life reality .
so yes maybe
People are still living this , shattered hearts , ugly truth to be thrown at their doorsteps by war and they wont dare to deny them .
maybe some boy is somewhere in this world living what Arin lived that night , it startles me that humanity can be too cruel .

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? (shakespeare /The Merchant of Venice)

so the boy grew into a revolutionary , he shed blood , he had to regret it , he thought about it
yet he didn't
he'd saved his people

She paused, tipped her head back, and glanced up at the sharp stars.
See how brave they are, whispered the memory of her father’s voice. She’d been very young when
he’d said this.
"Bright and still. Those stars are the kind of soldiers who stand and fight."
A rush of anger , Even the stars.
Don’t just stand there, she told herself. Run.

Kestrel
can the writing be so good that the characters are no more separated from you
that you became them , you see their worlds with your eyes , you shiver under the rain when they do , you freak out when they do , catch your breathes , hyperventilate as they do , live the war , live the anticipation of the moment just before an attack , feel the air in your hair while they ride a horse !
there was no wall of words and lines
i still feel her desperation when she played bite and sting with the emperor , i still remember my heart speeding with every move
its the writing Again thats what cast the spell
kestrel , she is brave , self preserved , ruthless and smart
we already know that .. but the character developed and twisted .


This series shows how love can be true
i dont mean Romantic love in here i mean just LOVE
kestrel loved her father ... inspite of everything the love never faded
kestrel forgot arin ... she loved him again
arin loved kestrel he trusted her .. believed in her even when she lied
he loved his country ... he sacrificed everything for it
friends loved each other ... the forgave .. they understood

so for me this series is a beautiful gush of feelings , 3 books to be deliberately read ..
out of words , i think i should leave you with the quotes , they may express better what i cant phrase :


her gaze lifted and saw, not fifteen paces away,
her father standing in the orange light of a fire.
It cracked her open. It hatched some creature of an emotion: two-headed, lumpy, leather wings,
unnumbered limbs, a thing that should never have been born. Kestrel hadn’t known until she saw her
father’s face how much she still loved him.
Wrong, that she felt this way. Wrong, that love could live with betrayal and hurt and anger.
Hate, she corrected herself.
No, a voice whispered back, the voice of a small girl.



He knew how it was to have no family: like living in
a house with no roof. Even if Kestrel were here, and begged him—Let your sword fall, do it, please,
now—Arin wasn’t sure that he could make her an orphan.




Kestrel thought that maybe she had been wrong, and Risha had been wrong, about forgiveness, that
it was neither mud nor stone, but resembled more the drifting white spores. They came loose from the trees when they were ready. Soft to the touch, but made to be let go, so that they could find a place to plant and grow.




"Nothing in dreams can hurt you" , her father had said—which was
another way of saying that life can.




"You, who seek your own father’s death."
But she didn’t, she found that she couldn’t, no matter how he had hurt her. She wished that he could see her play, and win. That he could see what she saw now.
A window is just a window. Colored glass: mere glass. But in the sun it becomes more. She would
show him, and say, love should do this.
And you too, she would tell him, because she could no longer deny that it remained true, in spite of
every thing.
I love you, too.





"You can wonder about her all you like" whispered death." But I am the only one who will have you."
Kestrel had ridden a few paces ahead. She turned, catching Arin’s glance. A bead of rain fell on his
cheek. The back of his neck.
"You are mine. I am yours. Is it not true, Arin?"
Her expression closed. He thought of a box shut so firmly that one cannot see its seams.
"Yes"



"You don’t need to be gifted with a blade. You are your own best weapon.”



He didn’t want to be here. He wondered why we can’t remember when our mothers carried us
inside them: the dark and steady heart, how it was the whole of the world, and no one harmed us, and
we harmed no one.
Arin thought that if he didn’t kill this man his memory of his mother would fade. It already had,
over time. Someday she would be as far away as a star.
But he couldn’t do it.
He had to do it.
Tell me what you did.
Arin dropped his sword, dropped to his knees, yanked the woven baldric from the fallen man’s
shoulder, and used it to make a tourniquet to save the person he hated most.




“Roshar, the tiger has grown.”
“And what a sweet big boy he is.”
“You can’t bring him into a dining hall filled with hundreds of people.”
“He’ll behave. He has the mien and manners of a prince.”
“Oh, like you?”
“I resent your tone.”
“I’m not sure you can control him.”
“Has he ever been aught but the gentlest of creatures? Would you deny your namesake the chance to
bear witness to our victorious celebration? And, of course, to the vision of you and Kestrel: side by
side, Herrani and Valorian, a love for the ages. The stuff of songs, Arin! How you’ll get married, and
make babies—”
“Gods, Roshar, shut up.”



“Your should haves are gone. They belong to the god of the lost. What I want to know is what you
are going to do now.”



Kestrel could say that she’d learned that one’s life is also the lives of others. A wrong is not an
egg, separate unto itself and sealed. She could say that she understood the wrong in ignoring a wrong.
She could say this, but the truth was that she should have learned it long before.



"If victory is slow" her father would say, "it becomes increasingly harder to grasp. "


“I want better choices.”
“Then we must make a world that has them.”




Thank You Marie Rutkoski for writing this series , for blossoming a whole new world inside of us ...


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