I saw a few weeks ago you mentioned you'd read Winterkeep! I just finished it yesterday 😭 so curious to know what some of your thoughts are on it
absolutely!! i had meant to post a comprehensive post far before this, and then i’d meant to re-read it, but... well, i’ll blame a mix of adhd and pandemic distractions.
i love this series a lot, and i think it’s most impressive to me how much we can see cashore improve as an author with each book. i cried at the end of winterkeep. i felt palpably the sense of grief and sorrow from her characters, and it was heavy and cathartic and an incredibly emotional experience. frankly, i was wowed by winterkeep. graceling will always be my personal favorite, but winterkeep i think is the best.
this will probably lack more details than i would like to include on my thoughts as i haven’t gone for a second read yet. but i loved the mix of voices and perspectives (fell in love with the keeper on page two, and holy shit, how dark things became with adventure fox and the actual tears i cried over him and bitterblue). it was lovely returning to bitterblue, giddon’s perspective was excellent and amusing to me (the character growth on him--Immense), and lovisa! what a good character! i have always loved that cashore does not need to make her protagonists “likable,” exactly--lovisa does objectively bad things, but we can see it and feel it, we understand her, and as i have experienced emotional abuse from my own family i ached with her grief and her pain. she was a teenager in all the ways a teenager really exists, proudly and shamefully and with room for growth, and i think she was a wonderful addition to the lineup.
(i did spent the entire book internally shouting WHERE IS KATSA because i will always love her but that is just because i am me)
i am really excited that we might be getting hava as the next main character, if i remember someone saying from one of cashore’s book tour interviews...? i loved her for many of the same reasons i love katsa--bitterblue was right, hava does remind me of her, and it is absolutely a compliment--and her dual act with giddon was excellent. and her bond with bitterblue, as they are sisters, was a wonderful thing to touch on as well. hava is one of the few people who can still understand the effect leck had on her country and continent--and speaking of leck, this was the first book where he was not the villain (directly or indirectly) and that was very exciting as well!
i was afraid we were going to end with a jaded concept of “politicians are always corrupt so don’t bother,” which is where i thought it was heading for a bit, but i was pleased that instead the idea was “money corrupts, but there is still room for people to do good things and make change, especially if you are young. ask questions and be critical.” i like how cashore addresses concepts of privilege, power, the environment--but my favorite thing about winterkeep and about the entire series will always be how cathartic every one of them feels. they’re an emotional punch to the gut, and that’s why they’re so, so special to me. i cannot wait to see more books in this world.
