I'm having a difficult time to put coherent sentences next to each other because I am. Utterly. Otherworldly. One percently. Emotionally. Tousled.
.....
*deep breath*
I can do this.

"You talk about her as if she’s made of spun glass. Know what I see? Steel.”

Kestrel has come a long way since she's adorned her braid with ribbons and her biggest quandary has been what to wear for a traditional Valorian tea party. That Kestrel is gone and a more unsteady version of her filled her old shoes. Broken by the trials of the tundra she has lost her memories that must be too painful to remember anyway. Nevertheless, she has come back like a refracted light irradiating Arin's heart. And she's more than ready to pick up the fight on the dark side.
I must say his father is a Dart Veder, indeed. I could tear him into tids and bits then I'd put them in a matchbox and set on fire. That's what he deserves, really. Nonethelessly, I feel sorry for Kestrel to fall such an asshole to her share. Not to mention Arin who's going to fight his own demons ad infinitum because of his painful past. Afer they suffered so much they well deserve a great amount of happiness, I might add. Luckily they have each other. What else would they possibly need? ;)

"Arin was a boy, a slave, a grown man, free."

I virtually pat Arin's shoulders for Kestrel popped up in his mind. If it wasn't for him in shining armor up to his ears, Kestrel would be long gone. I can't really blame his tardiness because Kestrel deceived him big time. Yet I do. Because by the time he arrived, Kestrel lost her memories and they had to start from zero. Plus I have to keep on gnawing at my nails. Also, I haven't figured that my heart could break so many times. Apparently it has a lot of dangerous potentials due to the spectrum of sentiments Kestrel and Arin go through: Guilt. Happiness. Loss. Hope. This ticket to the emotional rollercoaster was out of my intention because it's bad for my breathing and blood pressure still I'm thrilled to have felt all of them along with my love birds. Thank you for that.

"He murmured that he loved her more than he could say. He promised that he would always choose her first."

There are times (okay: always) when I'm drooling over the male character. For this time (the world turned upside down), I tended to love them as an unbreakable package and I loved the world the author confines me in for hundreds of pages. It is my personal shelter where I can feel whatever I want, whenever I want. Either it is pure wicked PAIN or cristal clear JOY. Jees, I love books!

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

P.S.
The flashing change of perspectives was killing me. When I just immerse in a thrill-packed scene and then bumm!!! it ends in the middle of the sentence driving me to despair and elevated numbers of heartbeats. No need to spend money on bungee jumping and wild water rafting if you hold The Winner's Kiss in your hands.

“Will you come with me?"
"Ah, Kestrel, that's something you never need to ask."

After reading

A few key facts:

This books is fictional.

—Thus perfect-I'd-do-anything-for-you guys don't exist.
—Thus Arin doesn't exist.
—Thus I live in reality.
—Thus my life is meaningless. And I should move on. But I can't. How can I? Can you? Would you? Want to?

Rating

EXCUSE ME WHILE I PICK UP THE PIECES OF MY HEART THAT JUST SHATTERED ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Physical symptoms that prove I'll die in a milli-second

Pounding heart. Contraction of lungs. Shortage of breath. Shuddering. A lump in my throat.

One thing is for sure

Even if I survive, I'm not convinced I want to live in this life void of the magic of the Winner's Trilogy.

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

.....

Song

London Grammar - Strong

"Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the sky…”

First impression

Another Marie Rutkoski book! Hurray! I can't even express how grateful I am for her stories. I don't mind reading an awful book if I can take one of her perfect-genious-impeccable-flawless masterpieces in my hands when I need it the most.

Who can tell about herself she's named after a black cat? The odds are not in the girls' favour, save for Darcy Johnson. She can be described as: lonely, lost, confused, and all the three at the same time when a mysterious new guy comes to the picture. I couldn't visualize what's going to happen at all so you can imagine my bulging eyes and little squeak when her love interest cuffs Darcy. Not very chivalrous.

A whole new world is being built up brick by brick in front of my eyes and I like what I see. I don't need much of convincing for I am hooked on other dimensions and all the other sci-fi stuff. I just miss the elaboration of a good idea and resent a rushed story-telling. Where are the other volumes, let's say, of a well-diserved trilogy?

I'd like to present the five stages of my journey throughout the wonderland of The Shadow Society.

Brace yourself.

Stage One

Sheer excitement. Hitting the first page head-on.

And we—we’re … friends, right?”
“Yes.” His voice was husky. He reached back for my hand and drew it around his waist. “Ready?”

Stage Two—Conn and Darcy on the motorbike

Is it appropriate to say I was slobbering on my eBook? A bit of luck it can be wiped clean in a second.

"It’s rare when you see your life is changing. Usually it simply changes and you’re left blinking at the aftermath, wondering how you got there."

Stage Three—Conn is an IBI officer

WHAT??? IS. GOING. ON.
Like a giant fist crushed my rib bones then a herd of cattles was trampling over my hollow body.

Stage Four

Waiting. I hate waiting.

"I thought about how the truth can sometimes sound like a lie because we’re too afraid to believe it."

Stage Five—Conn and Darcy together

Ah, guys. You are adorable!

“There are second chances. But maybe it’s also true that things can never be the same, and that you have to decide whether the second chance lives up to the first.”

After reading

Cross my heart and hope not to die.

Rating

Head in the clouds. I'm not coming down soon so I can not give you stars right now.

"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me."

“Best to recognize the things you can’t change, child.”

Part of the world has split into two groups. Valorian and Herrani. I'd like to ask at the beginning what on earth do people keep humans as slaves unless we have a time machine and traveled back in time? A bit out-of-fashion, don't you think? I hope we're better than that.
The same goes for the ladies' good reputation and need-of-escort. Guys are such cavemen. I am not surprised Kestrel throws her cap over the windmills and doesn't give a damn about conventions hanging over her head like a watery cloud. The fact of being the general's daughter inadvertently makes her number one target of malicious gossips. Especially after she takes a slave beside her as an around-the-clock escort for the pleasure of blabbering crones.

Note

I have read  Kestrel and Arin's chit-chat indifferently at first. I simply haven't felt the compulsory heat surrounding them. But as the story unfolds they are certainly warming up gradually to my great pleasure. ;)

"Always identify your opponent’s assets and weaknesses."

I slightly disdain Kestrel for being such a damsel-in-distress when it comes to hand-to-hand combat given the fact that she has learned fighting skills for her entire life. She didn't read the reference book of war before bedtime as a child, that's for sure. But.
She's more cunning and calculating than I have given credit for. Evidence speaks for itself as the duel till death went pretty well if not smoothly. Thanks to her ability of seeing through lies and making a good thing out of it practically she talked herself out of the hot mess she got into willingly. I'd like to think it was pure instinct to protect Arin who's become more than just her slave. She's prone to meddle in other people's business anyway...
But she have the wits to get out of trouble without lifting a hand. She must have got through life by the policy of more brain than brawn. So true. Smart girl.

Then, quietly, he said, “I could do it.”
“What?”
“I could braid your hair.”
“You?”
“Yes.”

When fate turns on its heels and smashes into Kestrel head-on, I must say she doesn't take it very well. I am wondering whether she's really a hothouse plant peaking out of her father's ironed slacks never once getting her hands dirty. It's okay making slaves work and their lives miserable. But the other way around? 'Good heavens no! I'm the moving spirit of society. Hands off!'
And that's the point when I had a change of heart. It's about life and death now and about changing the faulty system of hierarchy.

Naturally Kestrel is hurt and betrayed but she's yet denying the fact she would have done the same the other way round. As for Arin, it is out of his intention to fall in love with the enemy but he has after all (inevitably). Now it's his turn to save her from the vicious claws of the Herrani. He has left nothing but to do everything in his power to protect Kestrel and come to terms with her. He doesn't have an easy job, to say the least. It's like making a raging hurricane to stop wiping whole islands off the map. He put a quart into a pint pot.

My hear has broken into Peace's when Arin lets Kestrel go. Even if it means he's bringing an entire army on his head. I love about this guy that he always put Kestrel first. It's impossible not to fall for this guy. And I fell hard.

Then I'm being so overwhelmingly mad. Not only because did she sentence him to death but there's something wrong in the system obviously that she wants to restore. Does she not see that?

"Happiness depends on being free and freedom depends on being courageous."

P.S.
I love the conception of music-bringing-people-together. It also has a role of intensifying their attraction. And I would give anything if I could hear Arin singing...*daydreaming alert: star-gazing*

“My soul is yours,” he said. “You know that it is.”

After reading

I put on the warpaint. I braced myself for The Winner's Crime.
It's coming soon!

Rating

4 out of 5

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