Top Ten Character Names for a Pet

Top 10 Tuesday is a post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week's topic is Top Ten Character Names for a Pet.

1. Kestrel from The Winner's Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski
2. Darrow from Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown
3. Sevro from Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown
4. Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
5. Dimitri from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
6. Oz from Thunder Road from Katie McGarry
7. Rhaegar from A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin
8. Blue from The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
9. Jasper from Jasper Dent by Barry Lyga
10. Thorne from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

I'm very picky about kids' names. While I love books and book characters, I just can't see naming one of my children after a book character. I really want my kids' names to have specific meanings. Nothing's wrong with naming your kids after book characters, but that's just not my jam. However, I think naming pets after book characters is a great idea. And you can bit a bit more fun and funky with pet names as well. What are your top character names? Let me know!

Update: It was brought to my attention by Holly that perhaps I should offer some clarification here. I interpreted the topic of naming a child AFTER a character as just that...naming a child based on a character...not just taking the name of a character and leaving the character behind. In actuality, I first saw the name "Ever" in a book. It wasn't a particularly good book in my opinion and the character was neither particularly spectacular nor particularly bad either. Regardless, I liked the name and kept it in my back pocket. When the time came, "Ever" became the first name of my daughter. But that was because her first name is paired with the middle name "Lael" which means "belonging to God" in Hebrew. Her name together (Ever Lael) means "always belonging to God". So while in some ways I did name my child BECAUSE of a character in a book, I didn't name her AFTER a character in a book because the book was so far removed from me and the reason why I loved the name and chose it for my daughter.

The Winner's Kiss - Review

The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, # 3)

By: Marie Rutkoski

Published: March 29th 2016 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

484 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Source: Personal Kindle Library

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--Some kisses come at a price.

War has begun. Arin is in the thick of it with untrustworthy new allies and the empire as his enemy. Though he has convinced himself that he no longer loves Kestrel, Arin hasn’t forgotten her, or how she became exactly the kind of person he has always despised. She cared more for the empire than she did for the lives of innocent people—and certainly more than she did for him.

At least, that’s what he thinks.

In the frozen north, Kestrel is a prisoner in a brutal work camp. As she searches desperately for a way to escape, she wishes Arin could know what she sacrificed for him. She wishes she could make the empire pay for what they’ve done to her.

But no one gets what they want just by wishing.

As the war intensifies, both Kestrel and Arin discover that the world is changing. The East is pitted against the West, and they are caught in between. With so much to lose, can anybody really win?

The Winner's Crime was a typical middle book in a trilogy where nothing good happens and it ends in a cliffhanger. I picked up The Winner's Kiss immediately upon finishing The Winner's Crime. I'm sure I've mentioned enough on the blog lately that I just don't have very much time to read, so when I find a book or a series that will hook me this much I have to take advantage of it. And so I read The Winner's Kiss in two days.

As the description says and we know from the end of The Winner's Crime, Kestrel's been exposed by her father and the emperor as a traitor and spy for Herran. The spymaster has been killed, and Kestrel has been quietly shipped off to a work camp in the frozen tundra to mine sulfur. The problem is, the prisoners there are drugged to keep them compliant. Kestrel knows she needs to escape, but doing so isn't easy when everyone around her acts like drugged out zombies.

I got so frustrated with Arin at the end of The Winner's Crime. I didn't see how he couldn't have at least wondered if Kestrel was being monitored and spied on. If all of the pieces of the puzzle he thought he'd figured out were true then surely it would have been possible that she wasn't able to speak freely. So I was annoyed at how easily he could sway from one extreme to the other and how quickly he could give up on Kestrel--again. Yet in the end, he made things right.

While Kestrel was at the prison camp and various other times throughout the book, Marie Rutkoski kept the sections short so that we got little snippets of what was happening but weren't overwhelmed with a bunch of detail and scenes that would have made the book drag. This helped us get a well-rounded view of all of the events while not getting bogged down in sections of the story that didn't matter as much as others. It also gave a nice effect for the passage of time. Even still there were pieces of the book that felt like they took longer than I would have liked.

I enjoyed how Kestrel and Arin both had things from their pasts that they had to overcome. Kestrel really had to work through her feelings for her father which I enjoyed reading. I liked Roshar as a friend. Of course, I had to roll my eyes at one part involving him.

Favorite quotes:

-Sometimes a truth squeezes you so tightly you can't breathe.

-She was always being left. War always won.

-Kestrel wondered if every question is a way of putting yourself at the mercy of someone else.

-...he understood that there are some things you feel and others that you choose to feel, and that the choice doesn't make the feeling less valid.

-"It was him or you," he said softly. "You had to choose." Her graze fell to the wet grass beneath her, the wrapped bandage. She thought of her past. Her whole life. "I want better choices." "Then we must make a world that has them."

Truthfully, I feel like I've only touched the tip of the iceberg that is The Winner's Kiss, but I don't want to risk spoiling any of it for you. I enjoyed it very much. I was hooked and read and read until I finished it. I had a few frustrations, but nothing too major to complain about. The Winner's Kiss gets 4 Stars. Have you read The Winner's Kiss? What did you think? Let me know!

The Winner's Crime - Review

The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, # 2)

By: Marie Rutkoski

Published: March 3rd 2015 by Farrar Straus Giroux

416 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Source: Personal Kindle Library

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--Book two of the dazzling Winner's Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love.

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement... if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.

The Winner's Curse was a completely blank slate for me. I knew nothing going into it, and I was so pleasantly surprised. Well The Winner's Curse ends in...not really a cliffhanger...but a place where I was dying to know what was going to happen next. So I bought The Winner's Crime immediately and started it immediately.

Ok so this isn't a spoiler, but The Winner's Curse ends with Kestrel saving Arin's life and his country by getting the Emporer to sign a peace treaty where Herran becomes a part of the empire, Arin becomes the new governor, and Kestrel is engaged to the prince. Not the best place for our completely unhappy couple. And that's exactly the nature of the entire book. This is the second book in a trilogy after all and it follows a typical trilogy arc pretty much spot on. Meaning lots of conflict and set up for the final resolution of the overall series.

So we start The Winner's Crime with Kestrel now living in the palace at the capital as she is engaged to the prince. Yet in the beginning Kestrel has very little to do with the prince at all. She is mostly engaged in conversation with the emperor, who early on establishes his dominance, intelligence, and cunning. While the important thing for us to learn through The Winner's Crime is that the emperor is an extremely formidable opponent, I was somewhat discouraged at how Kestrel went from very strategic and logical in book 1 to the creature she becomes in book 2. While she's still strategic and smart, she's very sloppy. I did enjoy how Kestrel stayed true to herself in being so against the treatment of Herran by Valoria. She can't stand by and do nothing. Again, not a spoiler because it is mentioned in the description, but Kestrel goes so far as to become a spy for Herran. Though truthfully, I think she's mainly just wanting to help Arin more than anything else.

Arin was a bit of a struggle for me in The Winner's Crime. It's obvious that the feelings he developed for Kestrel are as strong as ever. But his faith in her is not. How her decision to form a political marriage could be anything but her attempts at saving him and his country is beyond me. Yet he doesn't see it. The only thing I can attribute it to is that the majority of his life has been spent around those who have used him as a stepping stone and barely noticed. But I should think that, given their history (Kestrel did fight a duel for him after all), he would have had more faith in her and her feelings for him as well as her honor. So yeah, I found myself rolling my eyes at him a good bit.

As I've already mentioned, The Winner's Crime is a typical middle book in a trilogy and as such, not much good happens. The characters start the book both in bad positions and they end the book in even worse ones. Yet if they didn't then what would be the need for a third book?

A few new key pieces of the puzzle fall into place in The Winner's Crime though. Even though Kestrel and the prince don't start out with the best relationship, they do develop a kindredness. The east is established as the next territory that Valoria is seeking to conquer and they do become allies with Herran. But at what cost? We see the lengths Kestrel goes to for Arin without him even being aware of it. The relationship between Kestrel and her father deepens and changes which sets up some aspects for the next book. And so yeah...we advance in the story for sure.

I will say that I think Marie Rutkoski's writing was even better in The Winner's Crime. At least from the aspect of quotable material. Here are my favorites:

-Kestrel had seen how the emperor loved to shape silence into a tool that pried open the anxieties of others.

-But he said nothing after that, only her name, as if her name were not a name but a question. Or perhaps that wasn't how he had said it, and she was wrong, and she'd heard a question simply because the sound of him speaking her name made her wish that she were his answer.

-There was dishonor, she decided, in accepting someone else's idea of honor without question.

-Kestrel didn't understand how the truth could be so two-sided, like a coin. So precious--and ugly.

-It was different to give something up than to see it taken away. The difference, Kestrel said, was choice. A limited freedom, but better than none. ...Now she knew that to give something up was to have it taken away.

I know that this review has come across as a bit negative, but that's not really how I felt about the book as a whole. Yes, it does follow the middle of a trilogy patterns where not much good happens, but plenty does happen to further the story along and of course set up for the final book in the series. I believe Marie Rutkoski's writing was even better in The Winner's Crime than The Winner's Curse. Of course, there is a cliffhanger for real with this book so I had to purchase The Winner's Kiss immediately. The Winner's Crime gets 3.5 Stars. Have you read The Winner's Crime? What did you think? Let me know!

The Winner's Curse - Review

The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Curse, # 1)

By: Marie Rutkoski

Published: March 4th 2014 by Farrar Straus Giroux

355 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopian, Historical Fiction

Source: Personal Kindle Library (On sale for $2.99)

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--Winning what you want may cost you everything you love...

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions.

One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin.

But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.

Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your heart.

I love when I'm able to go into a book completely blind. You guys, I don't think I ever even read the description of this book...at all. I never read any reviews. I only know that I saw readers rating this book highly. And then right before I picked it up to read I had one or two people tell me that they didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else did. So I had literally zero expectations of this book. This so rarely happens. Then once I started reading I was hooked early (by at least 10%). That's something that's been happening so infrequently it seems.

Marie Rutkoski has created a brilliantly complex world in this series. Not only the countries and politics but histories and religion. Customs and stories. Each piece playing a part to create this elaborate setting for The Winner's Trilogy. In the recent history of this world, Valoria has conquered Herran. Herran had two options: fight and die or surrender and become slaves. Herran chose the latter. Kestrel is the daughter of the General of Valoria. The General's strategic mind is the reason why Valoria won the war, and he wants his daughter to follow in his footsteps. He's taught her about fighting and strategy her entire life. But a key factor also influences Kestrel. Since her mother passed when she was young, she's been raised by her Herrani nurse. She couldn't help but develop the love of a child toward the one who took care of her needs and raised her as her own since her father was more often off at war than at home. Whether it was the nurse's intention to instill a sense of the wrongness of slavery in Kestrel or not that's exactly what happened.

Kestrel never intended to end up at the slave auction that day. But she does. And hearing the auctioneer's description of Arin, seeing some unnameable quality in his expression, Kestrel decides to buy him. It wasn't her desire to own a slave, but since she's the General's daughter, nothing she does is secret. She has to act according to society's rules even though she's breaking those rules every chance she gets. Even if she doesn't say it out loud, Kestrel wants to be better than what she sees. She makes an odd decision to be honest with Arin. And honesty--especially when it is costly--binds together.

Arin is angry. He's a slave and slaves are rarely treated with common human decency. He can't seem to just obey without acting out in whatever ways he finds. He can't bring himself to believe that Kestrel, the daughter of the General who conquered his nation and forced his people into their current positions, could possibly not be the same as every other Valorian who's owned him before. He's done what he has to do to survive and he's going to do the same now. Yet he gets these glimpses of who Kestrel really is. And despite not wanting to be, he finds himself drawn to who she is and what she's done for him.

I really enjoyed Marie Rutkoski's writing style. The world building, the characters, the emotion, how quickly she had me invested in the story and the characters, how she didn't need to use cursing to write a fantastic book, the sentences every now and then that I found beautiful in and of themselves.

Favorite quotes:

-"The Winner's Curse is when you come out on top of the bid, but only by paying a steep price."

-...people in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.

-"Everything in war hinges on what you know of your adversary's skills and assets," he said. "Yes, luck will play some part. The terrain will be crucial. Numbers are important. But how you negotiate the strengths of your opponent is more likely to decide the battle than anything else."

-A feeling flowed into Arin, something like sleep or the sudden absence of pain.

-Happiness depends on being free, Kestrel's father often said, and freedom depends on being courageous.

-There was a silence as long as a smile.

In the end The Winner's Curse gets 4.5 Stars from me. I was invested in what was going to happen. I felt for both characters. They were each in an impossible situation at times where I could only agree that each was making the only moves they could make. Yet those moves served both for and against what they wanted. The ending of The Winner's Curse had me using a long lost and recently found gift card to snatch up The Winner's Crime so that I could know what happens next. Have you read The Winner's Curse? What did you think? Let me know!

Top Ten Reads January - June 2016

Top 10 Tuesday is a post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week's topic is Top Ten Reads January - June 2016.

1. Morning Star (Red Rising Trilogy, # 3) by Pierce Brown
2. He Will Be My Ruin by KA Tucker
3. Their Fractured Light (Starbound, # 3) by Aime Kaufman & Meagan Spooner (review coming soon)
4. The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, # 1) by Marie Rutkoski (review coming soon)
5. The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, # 2) by Marie Rutkoski (review coming soon)
6. The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, # 3) by Marie Rutkoski (review coming soon)
7. Leaving Paradise (Leaving Paradise, # 1) by Simone Elkeles (review coming soon)
8. Return to Paradise (Leaving Paradise, # 2) by Simone Elkeles (review coming soon)
9. Too Late by Colleen Hoover
10. Walk the Edge (Thunder Road, # 2) by Katie McGarry