YA Review: The Winner's Crime

The Winner's Crime (Winner's, 2) by Marie Rutkoski, March 3, 2015. 402 pages. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). Source: Library.

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement…if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.

First Sentence:

She cut herself opening the envelope.

It has taken me a couple weeks to sit down and write my thoughts down for The Winner's Crime. It has taken me even longer to decide how to rate it. Let's just say that my mind is a jumble when it comes to this book and pegging just how it made me feel.

Luckily, when I started The Winner's Crime I did not feel the need to re-read book one (even though I kind of wanted to) because I could still see where things ended in The Winner's Curse. So, I felt confident on starting in on the second book in Marie Rutkoski's Winner's series without a re-read beforehand.

  Well...the beginning...yeah...it was slow going. It started off so slow that I had begun to think that maybe it was going to be an uninteresting sequel. Really, I was so fed up with Kestrel and Arin for the first one-hundred pages. Call me unsympathetic, but their constant thinking of each other, and thus neglecting things, kinda annoyed me. Sure, they came to like each other but there was so much more at stake other than their hearts. While I was mildly annoyed with them the turning point came when things began to escalate with the ploys of the king.

  So, while the feelings between Kestrel and Arin didn't really interest me, it was the rest of the book from the court intrigue to the writing that kept me interested in the long run.

For me, the best thing about The Winner's Crime would have to be the drama and court intrigue. Because Marie Rutkoski really, and I mean really, knows how to right those tough scenes well. Like the ones between Kestrel and her father, my mind is still spinning and plotting out his motives for what he did. That right there is why I could not walk away; as well, as the misunderstandings regarding her motives for everything she's done from book one till now are some of what have really made this an interesting series to read.

Even though I wasn't really into the matters of the heart involved in The Winner's Crime, I enjoyed how well it was written after the first hundred or so pages. You know when things took an even darker turn and they were forced to see every side of each other and look at the choices they've each made for the things they want. Ah, these are the things that can a good book great. And, when done well, like they were in The Winner's Crime, leaves me one happy reader.

Final Verdict: The Winner's Crime- While it took some time to get going, this was an interesting book because it progressed the story to the next stage. One that I am eagerly awaiting.

The Winner's Crime earns

this book was borrowed from my local library; all thoughts are my own.