Book Review: The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski

Title: The Winner’s Curse
Author: Marie Rutkoski
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 9780374384678

Synopsis:
They were never meant to be together. As a general’s daughter, seventeen-year-old Kestrel enjoys an extravagant and privileged life. Arin has nothing but the clothes on his back. Then Kestrel makes an impulsive decision that binds Arin to her. Though they try to fight it, they can’t help but fall in love. In order to be together, they must betray their people . . . but to be loyal to their country, they must betray each other.

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I borrowed The Winner’s Curse from the library as an audiobook and it was actually a really great book to get into for easy listening. I was able to work my way through by listening during my lunchtime walks with my dog through the neighbourhood.

The story itself is not overly complicated with a primarily politics and society-driven plot with minimal romance. It follows Kestrel, the daughter of the Empire’s lead general, as she acquires a new slave in her employ. He ends up being so much more than the simple blacksmith that she believe him to be. Both characters, motivated by their political backgrounds and survival of the fittest in a brutal war, are drawn to one another’s intellect and the discrete but momentous kindness that each of them holds towards the other. While neither is willing to admit it, they both have complex feelings towards one another simmering just beneath the surface, and those feelings threaten to throw everything into upheaval.

It’s an enjoyable enough story that moves at a good clip. I’ve already started listening to the second book in the series. Kestrel is an interesting character whose arc gets much more exciting as the climax of book one approaches and leads into book two. She becomes so much more than just the general’s daughter as her understanding of her world grows and she finds that the ways of her people don’t sit well with her at all. She seems to be an enigma among her own culture as she sees the slaves as individuals capable of so much more than they’ve been relegated to in this life.

I did find the romantic elements of this story to be a bit too subtle to really convince me of a any sort of deep feelings between Kestrel and Arin. I couldn’t really understand their attachment to one another, and neither one of them seems inclined to act on the feelings that the reader is told that they have for one another. It is more clearly established towards the end of the book, however, I think the romantic attachment serves more for Kestrel to question the constructs of her society more than anything. Her relationship with Arin opens her eyes to the slaves as real people and she gains a quick understanding that power really rests with those who possess the greater might over the others. Through their interactions, she sees how tenuous her people’s grasp on power truly is and how quickly it can fall.

I quite liked the story as a whole, despite its weak parts. It’s easy to sink into and it doesn’t take too much to follow along. It’s always nice to have an easy story to get through.

Happy reading!