Review Detail

My fantasy amnesia makes it very hard to remember Graceling(2008) or Fire (2009), other than that I liked them and was excited to get Bitterblue. It took me the entire Easter weekend to read this, mainly because teenagers were having Disney song fest and it was hard to concentrate, but also because I got caught up in the characters and couldn't zip through it.

Bitterblue is now 18 and trying to reclaim the kingdom her father Leck destroyed. She wants to be a fair ruler, unlike her father, and understand the workings of her kingdom so that she can help the people. She starts to sneak out at night to see what is really going on, and meets Saf and Teddy, printers and outlaws who are bent on stealing back things that were taken under Leck's rule. Katso and Po are helping Bitterblue with her work, as are a variety of advisors, including Death (pronounced Deeth), the librarian who has the Grace of reading everything superfast and remembering it all. This comes in handy when he tries to recreate all of the books that Leck destroyed, and also when Bitterblue unearths her father's disturbing journals, that turn out to be not only in ciphers (like the embroidery that her beleaguered mother left) but in another language entirely. Through Saf, Bitterblue comes to understand how poorly her kingdom is run, but also runs into some danger. None of the people she knows seem to be who they say they are, and she uncovers secrets that make her allies her enemies and vice versa.

This book stood on its own as the story of Bitterblue and the kingdom of Monsea, and if I remembered more about the other two, I would have appreciated the inclusion of Katsa and Po, and well as Fire's appearance later in the book. These still remind me very strongly of Pierce's Alanna books.