Winterkeep

This was such an unserious book .... I loved Giddon's continued character development and I did find myself liking him and Bitterblue together despite the truly alarming age gap but this was a silly book with a silly plot and very oversimplified political dynamics. It felt the most YA. I'm actually not sure how we went from Graceling and Fire to this, and it generally didn't feel like part of the series in any meaningful way. It was fun and I had a great time reading it but it just doesn't live up to its predecessors.

I read Graceling in 2015 and really liked it but didn't love it. After seeing Kristin Cashore and Elizabeth Lim give fascinating talks about fantasy at the Boston Book Festival, Renata suggested I pick back up with the series with Winterkeep.

Correctly, she thought I would love it. AND I DID. I love character-driven stories and fantasy and political intrigue so this was right up my alley. Plus, blue telepathic foxes! I love them. I would love to have a telepathic fox companion - I promise not to reveal the secrets of foxkind!!

Anyway, this book is great, I'm looking forward to Seasparrow, and always listen to Renata!

4.5 - This book blew me away. Bitterblue still remain my favorite book in the series but this one is probably the strongest.

There were a lot of things i enjoyed. I do like how the author expanded the world. The book feels very different from the previous books, which makes me wonder if it's setting up for a new trilogy. As usual, i loved the politics, but he themes of environments and the new vast technology that would probably affect the seven nations in the next years, added more strength to the world.

My favorite parts are anything with Giddon and Hava, their journey, banter and friendship were the most thing i looked forward to. I was thrilled that Giddon got his own point of view, i didn't think the author could make me love him more after the third book, but i guess i've been proved wrong. I'm also so happy that Giddon and Bitterblue ended up together. It's one of the healthiest relationships i've read about, and i hope to see more of their dynamic in future books.

I'm very excited that the next book is focusing on Hava; she's one of my absolute favorites in this series and i'm dying to see more of her interactions with Bitterblue or Giddon.

I can say for sure that this series made its way among my top favorites, because i can't help but need more of this world and its characters.

1: Graceling ★★★★★
#2: Fire ★★★
#3: Bitterblue ★★
#4: Winterkeep ★★
#5: Untitled - will not be reading

2 ⭐️

i am begging kristin cashore to get an editor, you do not need to jam together every plotline you can think of to create some monstrous story. this could have been 2-3 separate books.

also it was incredibly cowardly not to have [redacted] in a sapphic relationship by the end.

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An excellence balance between adorable and heartbreaking, well done! I like Bitterblue MUCH better in this than I did in her own book where it was just political intrigue and sneaking around.

Writing wise, Lovisa and Bitterblue are my favorite dynamic in ever, because Bitterblue is like, Lovisa several years in the future, once she's had a chance to heal.

Kristin Cashore writes fantasy at exactly the level that I prefer–where there's a note at the beginning saying that she's using days and months of the Gregorian calendar as a shorthand and we should just assume they're “translations” from whatever calendar they use in these fantasy countries. You know what? THANK YOU Kristin, I absolutely have no interest in learning fake fantasy months. (I'm aware that other fantasy readers are extremely interested in that level of fantasy, and to you I say: you have plenty of other books, nerds.)

Kristin Cashore uses the time she saves on not defining fantasy months by developing characters and their relationships and that's the shit I'm here for! I saw some reviews saying the telepathic foxes are silly and honestly, can't relate. Love them.

Anyway, I spent more time talking about who this book is not for than I did on explaining why it is for me. If you liked the others in the Graceling series I don't see why you wouldn't like this. I re-read the 3 previous books in preparation for this one; I'm not sure that was necessary since this is branching off into a new ~realm~ so it's a little bit like a reboot. But I enjoyed re-reading them.