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Chappell.

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“Truths are dangerous.” “Then why are you writing them in a book?” “To catch them between the pages.”

artwork by miaiminnis (insta) (tumblr)

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Do you ever think about the ways in which we are taught about love and duty

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“We need more mean women!” You guys couldn’t even handle Katsa from Graceling

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rly trying to figure out how to do digital art ;-;

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I just finished winterkeep if u want someone to scream feelings with. I greatly enjoy your blog and your ramblings and tags. I feel so seen

AHHHHH it's such a good book!!! it's so good! I got a little confused at first with the shifting POVs but it turned out to really work. What did you like about it?

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okay, I finished Winterkeep a few weeks ago, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk about it since. note, I’m gonna talk a good bit about my messed up childhood in this post, so if that’s not for you, feel free to keep scrolling.

I don’t know anyone else who’s read it, so I feel a little as if I’m talking to myself on this topic, but that’s okay. I want to have this here so I can refer back to how I was feeling about this book when I had just read it, which is mostly complicated and difficult but in a way that reminds me of healing.

first, I want to talk about Bitterblue’s role in this book. This is the first Cashore book I’ve read where a previous character plays a significant role in the story- I don’t remember much of Giddon in Bitterblue (I might just be forgetting), and Fire and Katsa are only mentioned so so briefly in that book to my memory at all. In Winterkeep, Bitterblue and Giddon are both there, and “Old King Nash” gets a shout-out that broke my heart, but it’s several chapters before Lovisa seems to actually matter to the story at all. That’s okay. I trust Cashore to make the story work.

But Bitterblue is there throughout the story, Giddon too. And I think the thing that I keep circling back on, like a dog who’s scared someone’s dug up her bone while she was away, is that Lovisa is like a mirror to Bitterblue of the time after Leck died. Because Bitterblue has already done this. Sure, her parents weren’t both there to hurt her, and Lovisa isn’t next in line for a monarchy, but. How much did Bitterblue look at Lovisa and see herself, hurting and afraid and lost? Did that hurt her? How did she find the strength to help Lovisa instead of getting lost in her grief?

I myself can barely look at Lovisa, even in my head. Due to my own nonsense childhood, I feel like I understand Lovisa’s habits on an almost uncomfortable level. It happens far less now, but I used to go out of my way to keep people from knowing how much I knew, to keep people from knowing all my secrets. I hid food because my mom hated the shape of my body and tried to limit what I ate, and I snuck around and stayed up all night to revel in the hours she was asleep. I found hiding places that took her years to uncover, and hid things that were important to me in case she decided to destroy my belongings.

Knowing all of this, and given the distance and scope I’ve learned to have from years of therapy, I can talk about it here without spiraling. But also, Lovisa isn’t there yet, and it’s terrifying. She’s still caught in the loop of trying to protect her little siblings like I did, trying to get enough information to be able to protect herself and them that way, trying to find a path out of the pain that will hurt the least and work the best.

Instead, her life explodes, quite literally. Everything she owned, gone. Both her parents, gone, and her father sitting there begging her to recast him in her mind as the good guy, to save him from his own poor decisions. Granted, my father was a very steady man, and good to me and my siblings, and my life as a child would have been immeasurably worse if he resembled Benni in the slightest. But.

I understand this book too well. I understand Lovisa’s shock, her pain, her confusion and painful longing for a way out. I understand her jealousy of Mari, the way she almost but not quite hates him for having been born into a life where both parents love him and genuinely try to be good parents to him, where they love each other and are kind because of it. I even understand the way that Lovisa doesn’t understand sex or sexual desire, though whether that’s her being asexual, or just sixteen, I couldn’t say. I understand the risks she takes in the interest of finding something to keep her afloat.

There’s more parts to this book than I have talked about here. There’s Nev, the exploding zilfium, the pig called Mercy, Nev’s kind and gentle family, Bitterblue. Giddon. Both of them loving each other, Giddon steady enough for Bitterblue to lean on his strength and be a good and kind queen. Their love story was captivating. Not even to mention the Kraken, and the silbercows, and their role in the book!

But it all pales in comparison to the shock, the quiet agony, of seeing my own little self sketched out on a page and re-named Lovisa. Her pain, her struggle- it’s too familiar.

I love this book. I’m glad I own it. I think it will be years before I can read it again.

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redemption arcs that double as tragedies!! you're a better person than you've ever been and you have nothing left to your name!!you have to rebuild yourself and your life from the ground up and you're smiling in the ashes!! you were devastated your life is ruined!!! nothing is ever going to be the same ever again you are never going to regain what you had you are never going to be free of the guilt you are never going to be able to go home there is nothing left for you!!! you are free you are more yourself than you've ever been!! fires help forests grow!!

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My favorite trope is Guy Gets Absolutely Wrecked By A Girl And Immediately Decides She’s The Love Of His Life

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Update my heart is on the floor and my stomach hurts and I’m definitely gonna dream about Lovisa tonight

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I’m 👌this close to finishing Winterkeep and my LUNCH BREAK ENDED folks I am so tired of being at work, I wanna know HOW IT ENDS

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THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION AND I’M SURE HER MOM IS DEAD AND THERE’S STILL LIKE 40% OF THIS BOOK TO GO

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OH FUCK

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Yeah ok I saw this coming

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Nev has autism I’m sure of it

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No matter where they went, Bitterblue wouldn’t be there.

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THE NOTES THE NOTES THE NOTES THE NOTES AHHHHHHHHH