Marie Rutkoski - The Winner's Crime

My number one trilogy ever...

Not only is the author masterfully pulling the strings (likewise setting my nerves on edge) but she's not afraid to keep the readers in frantic suspense, either. (Or it is just me? Because I'm a frantic mess right now.) Please stop being so cruel to me!

"If you won’t be my friend, you’ll regret being my enemy.”

Kestrel is like I'm looking at a whole new version of her, that's why I eventually got to like her: neither a damsel anymore, nor a badass sword-wielding combatant playing second fiddle in others' child plays, but a smartass strategist going to war on the battlefield of hearts. Even if she doesn't want to be a soldier, Kestrel is more likely to become the trump of the outcome of loyalty-to-Valoria or freedom-to-Herrani game of cards for she's having a bunch of tricks up her sleeve. Needless to say, she's her father's daughter.

Hard times call for difficult measures. She's the type of YA heroines who is not afraid to make tough choices. Even if this time it will cost her happiness. Yet Kestrel wouldn't happen to be my favorite character if she ever backed down or wavers for a second. I am high over heels that the motivation behind her actions is no other than the GORGEOUS-HOT-BODY Arin. This YA couple tower above every other fantasy romances I've ever read and it's quiet an achievement. The energy between Arin and Kestrel is spectacular. Together they act like a piece of iron being forged and molded until it begins sparkling and scintillating in the flames like a firework on the fourth of July. I am struck blind by the light.

"Sometimes you think you want something,when in reality you need to let it go.”

No one would have had the courage to fall in love with the enemy as Arin have. Despite the seemingly cruel attack on the easterners and the outrageous marriage to the emperor's son which seemingly proves (Jeez, everything is fake) Kestrel's hunger for power, Arin still loves her. For this I love him. But he leaves her behind, he does not put too much faith in the two of them. For this I hate him. Yet I still keep on having a crush on him because of his pure masculinity, his good heart and his undying love for Kestrel. How can I not care while he's being hurt over and over again and pushed far away by Kestrel? Good luck to leap over the ocean that separates the two of them now. I'd like to shake Kestrel a thousand times to snap out of the pretend-game because even if it seems she won she lost. I don't agree with her whatever-it-costs play for fear that Arin is slowly sinking out of sight...

A game of chess

It also feels like Kestrel is the queen protecting the king from an army of pawns knights and cavalrymen to checkmate. Every step brings new dangers and different outcomes until it turns out she's rather the looser than the winner of this battle.

Warning: This book has the ability to make you succumb to non-stop daydreams and hopeless romanticism while reading. It will invade your dreams, your waking thoughts, until you find yourself drawing little hearts encircling the name, Arin.
Word of advice? Don't start reading it in public. You wouldn't like people call the nuthouse because you startle them by ear-splitting No!s and Why? and What the hell are you doing? Stupidstupidstupid!s on the bus.

I feel...

Breathless. Shattered. Heart-broken. Dizzy. Empty. Gutted. Beaten. Agonized. Afflicted. Smashed. Trampled. Trapped. Shocked. Crazed.
Blissful. Overjoyed. Hopeful. Rejoiced. Exuberant. Alive.

After reading

This book has been playing an underhand game with me the whole time! Incredible! I have never been on edge for 300 or so pages before. Every time Arin felt heart-broken and betrayed I fell over the cliff right into the tempestuous waves of the ocean drowning along with him. Technically, I am dead by now.
Suffice it to say that it was insufferable to see my baby being in pain.

After-after reading

Personally I believe the gorgeousness of a book could be measured by the number of crying over a scene. I think I over-accomplished this mission. I only stopped for being unable to continue reading though the veil of my tears.

Days after reading

I want to jump into the Winner's Kiss immediately. Wait, no. I don't want to. If I do then how can I go on with my life without the Winner's Trilogy??? *blank face*

Rating

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Song

London Grammar - Strong