Buoyed by Friendship -- Review of Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Midway through Kristin Cashore’s fantasy novel Bitterblue I couldn’t help myself. I called my friend’s twelve year old daughter to gush about how she has to put everything down and read this book right now.

“Oh, I already read it,” she said. “It’s great!”

I had intended to do some serious raving about how marvelous the novel is, how much I’m enjoying it,  and how fabulous Bitterblue is as a queen, but my friend’s daughter was way ahead of me.

Still, I have to gush to someone. And I loved loved loved this book. I loved Kristin Cashore’s first novel Graceling with its powerful female protagonist Katsa. I enjoyed her second novel Fire whose mind-reading heroine Lady Fire lived a rich, conflicting (and poetic) inner life. And I finished Bitterblue, holding my breath all the way to the end, watching the young queen as she sifts through the chaos her father left in her attempts to heal her kingdom.

Bitterblue is surrounded by lies. From every direction, it seems, people weave a web of confusion and deception around her, doing their best to keep her in the dark. Are her strange advisers to be trusted? Are her guards really protecting her? Are her spies loyal? Is the information she receives from her clerks falsified? Bitterblue is just one little queen with a lot of good intentions. How can she overcome so much history of terror and fear when she doesn’t even know who’s on her side?

The rule in young adult novels says that the main character must solve her problems on her own, without adult help. Cashore stays true to this rule. The young Bitterblue, with her energy and strong sense of what is just and right fights her battle on her own terms and under her own power. But she is far from alone. Her friends might not solve her problems for her, but they are always there to give Bitterblue their love, their support, and their faith. Her cousin Po might not always hear her calls. Katsa might be away for most of the action. Giddon, Raffin and Bann might be bogged down by council affairs. But when they are there, they have an ear to listen and an arm open in a hug for Bitterblue. And sometimes, perhaps, that’s all a little queen needs in order to conquer ignorance and fear and reach the truth that lies behind.

I love that though the odds against Bitterblue are huge, Cashore does not leave the young queen hanging all on her own without any support circle. Bitterblue does not lie back and allow others to solve her problems, but that does not mean that no one is allowed to give her a kind word. At the SCBWI conference, Tony Diterlizzi said that all of us, in the end, meet our darkest moment alone. But how much stronger are we when even alone we know we have the love of our friends behind us.

My review of Graceling
My review of Fire
Kristin Cashore's blog
Bitterblue on Goodreads

Missing the Novel by Reading for Action

A few months ago I read Kristin Cashore’ Graceling. I loved the fantasy world Cashore created, the strong characters, the danger that bubbles below (and above) the surface. Graceling enchanted me, whole and complete from beginning to end, so much so that after I read the last word, I knew I was not yet ready to revisit its world. All around me, however, readers were raving about Cashore’s second novel, Fire, and so finally, expecting to plunge back into the world of Graceling, I began to read.

While reading Graceling, I wondered again and again how Cashore would challenge Katsa, the powerful fighter she had created. After all, what could possibly stop a woman so strong that none, neither man nor force of nature, can defeat her. When the challenge came, it was complete. The stakes were high, and I trembled and read faster, wanting to find out if and how Katsa will win the day. I cheered for her, because despite her immense strength I could see her humanity, her frailty, her dependence on the other characters which I knew would not help her when the moment came to face her test.

I had a harder time empathizing with Fire, the heroine of Fire. She appeared to me a passive heroine, floating through the novel, experiencing rather than causing the action around her, engaged mostly with her own inner turmoil. With mind reading abilities and the capability of altering people’s behavior and thoughts, Fire ought to have been a powerful character. And yet because she never fully acknowledges her magic, or because she is always surrounded by her bodyguards, I felt she never fulfilled the promise of her potential.

Fire limits the physical and mental manifestations of her powers. Since the sight of her beauty causes people to lose their self control, she covers her hair and downplays her physical appearance. She refuses to touch people’s mind unless for self defense, and even after the royal family convinces her to work for them as an interrogator, she reads the prisoners’ minds with a gentleness and kindness that attests to her distaste for any form of violence or invasion.

Though Fire deals with war, it is as calmly written and as introspective as a ride down a tranquil river. I think, after Graceling, I imagined something more like a class five white-water rafting trip. I wonder if I read the novel too quickly, with an eye for the action and plot rather than the intricacies of character development and relationships. Perhaps I ought to have taken the time to enjoy the thought process that turns Fire into the heroine she is. Fire, I think, is a novel to read slowly and carefully, not a race to the end.

Maybe my expectations were at fault, but far from feeling discouraged, I plan to approach Bitterblue, Cashore’s third novel, with fewer beliefs, to luxuriate in her poetic prose and enjoy her perfect building of character and world.