Bitterblue review with spoilers

Title: Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3)
Author: Kristin Cashore
Rating: 4.5/5




CAUTION SPOILERS AHEAD!  

Bitterblue was one of the books this year that I was looking forward to reading and it didn't disappoint.  Nine years after Graceling Bitterblue is now the Queen of Monsea.  Left to repair a broken city Bitterblue is trying to uncover the horrors that occurred during Leck's reign. 

Story
I think the story of Bitterblue was pretty spot on, there are a lot of things she doesn't know about what happened in her city and she's going to great lengths to find them out.  I loved seeing Bitterblue sneak out of the castle and meet new people.  Since Bitterblue isn't graced with fighting like Katsa this book isn't filled with as much action as maybe the first was (I can't recall Fire too well but I don't think it had a lot of action like Graceling either).  A lot of the action in this is mostly attempts made on Bitterblue's life but her being Queen that's very understandable especially when Leck still has advisers in the castle.  Bitterblue stumbles across ciphered books written by Leck that she thinks documents his time as King.  She gets the help of friends old and new to try and fix what Leck broke.

Characters
I was most excited to see Bitterblue in this book and I think she lived up to my hopes.  I think she's really grown and even though there were times her actions weren't honorable or even mature I really liked her.   I fell in love with a lot of the new characters too especially Saf, by far he was my favorite new character.  I felt so bad for him every time Bitterblue lied or anytime he'd ask about her mother.  I loved the mystery behind his grace and even though it wasn't as exciting as I was expecting I guess giving dreams is pretty cool and I think just the fact that he was graced but didn't know with what was pretty interesting. I also loved Saf's friends Teddy, Tilda and Bren.  Along with the new characters there were so many characters from previous books.  I loved seeing Giddeon and honestly didn't even remember him until he said he had feelings for Katsa.  I love how he has matured so much and his character was great, it was good to see him grown up and changed.  If I didn't like Saf so much I almost hoped Bitterblue would fall for him regardless of the age difference.  Po and Katsa also made a return in this book, I loved Po but sometimes I felt like his grace made it seem like he could see.  I read the acknowledgements and Kristin Cashore said she realizes it was a mistake to take Po's sight but give him a grace that gave him sight, making him neither able or disabled and I think I agree with her.  I often forgot that Po wasn't able to see because it seemed like he saw so well.  Katsa on the other hand felt like a totally different person, I didn't recognize her.  She was often whiny and annoying to me, I think I would've preferred the book if Katsa wasn't in it.  Her attitude almost made me think she was either pregnant or on her period.  You can't just have a book filled with good guys so there were a few bad guys to go along with it.  There were a lot of people in this book who were Leck's former advisers and who were continuing to scheme behind the scenes.  I felt pretty bad for Thiel especially hearing the things that Leck made him do.  Fox was an interesting character and I wasn't expecting her to be Gray although I guess I should've sensed something wrong with her.  Out of all these characters I was most shocked to see Fire, but it was pretty amazing.  I loved that we saw her portrait first and knew that it was her then to see Katsa return from the Dells with this old woman with graying red hair. 

Relationships
I loved Saf and Bitterblue's romance.  It wasn't instant love and they had a lot of lies that their relationship was built upon and they pushed through it.  Cashore's general themes with relationships are nontraditional and this one was no different.  Saf and Bitterblue may have held feelings for each other but they had two different lives that didn't meet in the middle.  Katsa and Po however were pretty annoying to me, I much preferred Po when him and Katsa weren't talking.  The way that they express their affection was too much for me, splashing in water, play fighting with others in the room I don't know it just wasn't my thing.  I also like that Cashore talks about same sex relationships too.

Overall I enjoyed this book a lot and I wouldn't mind re-reading Fire and Graceling to see some of the things I may have missed in Bitterblue because I don't recall all the events in the previous books.  I hope that this series will continue I'd like to see some other characters stories and would love to see more of this world.