The Winner's Kiss

This book broke me. Which was what I hoped/dreaded it would do after the previous book, but this... if I hadn't been distracted by random other things the day after I finished this I would have lain in bed all day (and I was very much distracted that day because my credit card got eaten by an ATM while I was in China and when I got that back I went to the Harry Potter exhibition and spent an hour running around there without many other visitors). Marie Rutkoski is absolutely brilliant - the books in this series are so well written and there's so much political intrigue and moral dilemma and the characters are just... see, I can't get a proper sentence out when talking about this! I think that what I like most about this book - this entire series, really - is that its classified as a fantasy because it's set in a different world but there's no magic. It's like reading a historical book but set in a country you've never visited, which requires a good amount of world building to achieve. Of course I also love the characters and I must say that they became even more interesting in this final piece of the trilogy than before thanks to the dramatic changes in their situation. Also Marie Rutkoski doesn't pull any punches when describing the battles in this book. Kinda Game of Thrones-esq from time to time. Well, not entirely, but it does show that battles are not just a brief thing but long and tiring and bloody and messy. They're not pretty - and that comes across in this book. I think that I will have to re-read this trilogy eventually, when I've calmed down a bit. Now let me just wallow in despair due to the fact that it's over...