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When I started reading the Seven Kingdoms Trilogy with Graceling, I was pretty much expecting that Bitterblue was going to be my favorite.
Now I've read Fire and Bitterblue, and my preferences did not totally shake out as I expected. I liked both of them! But I think if I had to pick one of the books in a cage match, it would be Fire.
Fire is about a woman named Fire who is a monster, which means she has the magic powers of being almost irresistible and a certain level of mind control over others. This is deconstructed as much as it ought to be. The plot isn't really a plot, per se, in that dramatic things happen; there's a war inching closer in the background, but most of the book is about Fire balancing her abilities with her responsibilities as a moral and ethical person, which she is. It's the quietness of Fire I like, as much as anything. I like seeing the dynamics shake out between the characters, who feel like real people with real concerns. I like seeing Fire figure out a place for herself on her own terms. It all feels very solid to me.
Bitterblue, meanwhile, is about learning how to rule and recovering from trauma -- on a personal and a nation-wide scale -- and both of these are things I really like, so theoretically it should be the book I like the most. And I do definitely admire a lot of what it's doing, but somehow the internal logic of it never felt one hundred percent solid to me. There's something almost dreamlike about the experience of reading it -- I mean, part of this is because everyone is super traumatized and so they keep spitting out trauma-related non sequiturs, and partly this is because all the architecture in the book was designed by a psychopath, including lots of weird sculptures and secret passageways, and partly this is because the government policies are designed by a lot of traumatized people and explicitly make no sense. But it means you get a lot of conversations like this:
BITTERBLUE: I would like to discuss our problematic governing policies with you.
ADVISOR: Just please don't bring up bones in the course of this conversation.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: Also, I don't know what you're talking about, Your Majesty, everything in the city is perfectly fine.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: Have you ever wondered what would happen if you jumped out a window? I wonder that. ALL THE TIME.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: May I be excused?
And then Bitterblue will wander off down a secret passageway and stare at some surrealistic architecture and think about how none of her advisors make any sense, which they don't. So, I mean, I liked it, and I'm very glad she wrote it, but I had a little bit of a harder time investing in it . . .
(Also, and unrelatedly, I was incredibly bored and annoyed by the love interest, although I liked the way it was evently resolved.)
(Also also, even more unrelatedly, but can we have a moratorium on characters-named-Death-pronounced-differently? I actually liked this particular character, but I kept getting distracted!)
This is just me, though! I know a bunch of people who say Bitterblue is their favorite of the trilogy, and there are definitely good reasons for that. So because I'm curious, a poll:
Now I've read Fire and Bitterblue, and my preferences did not totally shake out as I expected. I liked both of them! But I think if I had to pick one of the books in a cage match, it would be Fire.
Fire is about a woman named Fire who is a monster, which means she has the magic powers of being almost irresistible and a certain level of mind control over others. This is deconstructed as much as it ought to be. The plot isn't really a plot, per se, in that dramatic things happen; there's a war inching closer in the background, but most of the book is about Fire balancing her abilities with her responsibilities as a moral and ethical person, which she is. It's the quietness of Fire I like, as much as anything. I like seeing the dynamics shake out between the characters, who feel like real people with real concerns. I like seeing Fire figure out a place for herself on her own terms. It all feels very solid to me.
Bitterblue, meanwhile, is about learning how to rule and recovering from trauma -- on a personal and a nation-wide scale -- and both of these are things I really like, so theoretically it should be the book I like the most. And I do definitely admire a lot of what it's doing, but somehow the internal logic of it never felt one hundred percent solid to me. There's something almost dreamlike about the experience of reading it -- I mean, part of this is because everyone is super traumatized and so they keep spitting out trauma-related non sequiturs, and partly this is because all the architecture in the book was designed by a psychopath, including lots of weird sculptures and secret passageways, and partly this is because the government policies are designed by a lot of traumatized people and explicitly make no sense. But it means you get a lot of conversations like this:
BITTERBLUE: I would like to discuss our problematic governing policies with you.
ADVISOR: Just please don't bring up bones in the course of this conversation.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: Also, I don't know what you're talking about, Your Majesty, everything in the city is perfectly fine.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: Have you ever wondered what would happen if you jumped out a window? I wonder that. ALL THE TIME.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: May I be excused?
And then Bitterblue will wander off down a secret passageway and stare at some surrealistic architecture and think about how none of her advisors make any sense, which they don't. So, I mean, I liked it, and I'm very glad she wrote it, but I had a little bit of a harder time investing in it . . .
(Also, and unrelatedly, I was incredibly bored and annoyed by the love interest, although I liked the way it was evently resolved.)
(Also also, even more unrelatedly, but can we have a moratorium on characters-named-Death-pronounced-differently? I actually liked this particular character, but I kept getting distracted!)
This is just me, though! I know a bunch of people who say Bitterblue is their favorite of the trilogy, and there are definitely good reasons for that. So because I'm curious, a poll:
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20
My favorite book in the Seven Kingdoms Trilogy is . . .
View Answers
Graceling!
6 (30.0%)
Fire!
8 (40.0%)
Bitterblue!
3 (15.0%)
I can't pick, I loved all of them!
3 (15.0%)
I can't pick, I hated all of them!
0 (0.0%)
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Also, I felt it was very dreamlike in that the same things kept happening over and over. I think Bitterblue went through the following conversation about fifteen times.
ADVISER: Everything is great!
BITTERBLUE: Uh.... I do not trust you.
ADVISER: Here is a hint about stuff that is not great!
BITTERBLUE: Maybe I can trust you.
ADVISER: More secrets!
BITTERBLUE: No more trust!
I like Fire and Graceling pretty equally; Graceling won for me in the poll mostly due to how refreshing the "I don't want kids and don't want marriage" was.
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I have no recollection of the love interest in Bitterblue. I guess I didn't even find him memorable enough to hate.
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On the other hand, I'm not sure it was meant to be "realistic" in the same way as the other two novels. I thought of it as allegorical, but dreamlike also fits.
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Also, hah, yes, this is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT ACCURATE. And I kept wondering why she only ever interacted with the same six people in her palace in order to have the same frustrating conversations -- like, I get that was part of the plot and the conspiracy, but still! (And then the same six people in the city, when she went into the city.)
I like both of them a lot; Fire feels like a more mature book to me, so it wins out by a margin, but Graceling was just deeply enjoyable. And refreshing, as you say!