Winterkeep is the fourth book in the Young adult series Graceling. (It is important to note that when I say Bitterblue I’m talking about the book and the person and when I say fire I’m talking about the book and the person as well not actual fire) The main theme of this book was abusive parents and the trauma from it. The first few books in the series all deal with main characters that have toxic parents and families so that is sort of a thing that is consistent throughout the books. Reading it, one can see how the different characters deal with their trauma and feel about it, as well as understand each other’s trauma. It also adds worldbuilding to the Graceling series, connecting the two worlds from the other books. We see Bitterblue (who is the queen of one of the kingdoms in the first world) discover that there is a whole other world beyond her and everyone’s knowledge with their own language and traditions. It connects that world back to her father bringing up more trauma, furthering the storylines from Bitterblue. It is the sort of story that since it’s not in our world we can see the progression of technological advancements as these places meet and learn about each other’s customs and ways of life. Although I found some of the other books in the series a bit better, and one of the new characters was someone I don’t really like, I still found it to be an interesting story. I find it interesting because of the world-building because you can read it and see how they’re not where we are technology-wise even though many people have powers there. It’s interesting to see the biases this whole other place has against people with powers and in the other world “monsters”. I think that the author did a great job of keeping engagement into the story and developing animals that don’t exist here but explaining them in a way that makes sense. Again, it was really interesting how the book dove into the trauma of Lovisa, and how because of Bitterblues trauma she could understand that. It was also interesting to read how Bitterblue’s sister Hava reacts to her trauma. Although the characters of Fire (the second book in the series) were barely a part of this book, it helps to think about how Fire dealt with her trauma as well. I think that these books all have a really good way of diving into these dark issues while still creating an engaging fantasy land with magic and managing to not be insensitive. Because these books do time jumps, more can be explored with the characters without having to specifically develop relationships between them that we read. Kristin Cashore does a really good job of this and creating character plots and relationships between the characters that make sense even without really knowing what’s gone on between them in the past almost decade. Going back to the toxic parents and trauma, the book goes headfirst into that by showing us the relationship between Lovisa and her parents and siblings. We can see how she wants to protect her brothers and wants to be protected from her mom by her dad. It kind of digs into the depression she faces and how she struggles to survive what she’s going through. All of the books do a really good job of this, in fact, it’s Bitterblue that has the biggest issues and faces them in the best way. The consistency with something that happens in Bitterblue and how Bitterblue handles talking to Lovisa when she is seemingly depressed is heartwarming and a great moment within the novel. Without being insensitive this book managed to somehow both add two worlds together, introduce new technology to a world of magic, world-build, and tackle family trauma head-on. I think this is a really good book but I would not recommend skipping the first few books before reading this one for it might make understanding it rather difficult. I would recommend this whole series to everyone especially people who are into magic and coming of age novels.
Celeste C.H.
Comentarios