TO READ: Bitterblue

SPOILER ALERT FOR GRACELING

(also, click here for a series of letters between the characters of Graceling and Bitterblue set before the beginning of Bitterblue, written by Kristin Cashore)

The third instalment in Kristin Cashore's The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy is Bitterblue, set eight years after the first book Graceling and on the same side of the mountains as the aforementioned novel - in the kingdom of Monsea, where young Queen Bitterblue now rules, still attempting to help her country recover. This book most certainly has the most complicated plotline of the series, and the darkest themes as well.

Bitterblue is the coming-of-age story of a young queen struggling to find herself and to take control of a kingdom she is supposedly in charge of. Feeling disconnected from the people she rules, Bitterblue begins to sneak out into the city at night to hear stories of her late father, a corrupt king, and it is there that she meets Teddy and Saf - two young men known as truthseekers who use thievery and publishing to try and put right what they believe to be wrong in the world, although there are many who would take extreme measures to silence them. And so it is just as the web of lies set up to make her transition to the throne as a ten-year-old is beginning to fall apart that Bitterblue starts spinning her own web of lies to hide from her advisors that she is trying to uncover the truth, and to hide from her newfound friends the power she truly wields.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Bitterblue; I loved seeing characters we met in Graceling return and I very much liked how relatable the character of Bitterblue is - she might be a queen, but that doesn't mean she can't get just as annoyed and confused as the rest of us (what I would like to know is, who had she been hanging around with who would teach her to use the word "balls" as a curse word?). Of course I particularly love Cashore's writing style, and her use of humour (there are a number of brilliant quotes I could point you to which I found rather amusing). Overall, I would say that Bitterblue is my least favourite in the series - however, please consider that there are only three of them, and that they are all favourite over pretty much all other books I have read.