The Winner's Curse

The Winner's Curse
by Marie Rutkoski

Genre: Young Adult
Published: 3/4/14 by Firrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages: 368
Format: ebook

My rating:
3 out of 5 stars





I would give the first half of this book 2 stars, and the second half I would give 4 stars...which gives an average of 3 stars for the whole book.

This is yet another young adult story about star crossed lovers in a fantasy/dystopian type of world. I guess it is people like me who keep these authors and publishers in business, because I read them all!  

The Winner's Curse is about Kestral, daughter of the general of the Valorian army.  The Valorians conquered the Herrani people, and now the Herrani serve as Valorian slaves.  One day Kestral buys a slave at the market, a young, handsome man named Arin.  Can you guess what happens next???  Oh, and also Kestral is almost to the age where she must choose between joining the military and getting married.  Her father wants her to join the military, but Kestral would prefer to choose neither of her options.

I found the first half of this book to be fairly boring.  There is a big world that Rutkoski has created here, but I didn't find it to be all that intriguing.  There are several pages worth of "history" about the Valorians and Herrani, and I really had to force myself to read it, as I found it to be very boring.  Also, I wasn't a fan of the plot about Kestral being forced to join the military or get married.  I can't explain why, but that part of the plot just felt silly to me.

However, after a major event happens just after the middle of the book, I did think the story got more interesting.  The ending was good enough that I really am eager to read the second book now, even if the first half of this book was kind of a dud.