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

2.0

This book has a lot of good reviews and a lot of stars surrounding it, and so naturally I had my hopes up going into it. And I was really let down and I guess I just missed the hype train...
I'm going to start off on a positive note:
This was a relatively short length book (and thank god for that). I think that the world-building and the world the writer presented us with was quite impressive for a fairly short fantasy book. There was no excessive information being dumped all over like you usually find in fantasy books and it was fairly easy to get a grip and understanding of this world. The language and writing were really good as well, and I had no problem whatsoever with the writer's style.

Now on the other hand, this was such a slow book in terms of plot development, and that's saying something given it's short-length (you'd expect it to be otherwise). Certain elements of the plot, including the main characters, felt really underdeveloped. All throughout this reading I felt so disconnected from the characters and the story line.
Also, despite slavery being the main/greatest plot theme in this book I did not like the way it was dealt with. All throughout the book I just felt like it was being dismissed in a way. Like you would guess that Kestrel (the main character) would be someone who's going to stand up for the slaves, against her father's ways (especially after reading the description of the book) and that is the way she'll be 'different'. But no, nope. What does she do instead? She just falls in love with a slave. Of course.
So yes this was a huge disappointment. But who knows maybe the sequels will be better? Although I'm not sure I'm going to continue with this series.