This novel, right from the off, began well by looking better than Fire and much more like a worthy successor to Graceling. Unfortunately, like Ethan Hunt's gloves in Ghost Protocol it kept slipping alarmingly.
Bitterblue is the very young queen of the kingdom of Monsea. Now why in hell Cashore chose to dump that on her female hero is as disturbing as it is mysterious. She couldn't think of the word 'queendom'? And whats with everyone referring to her as Lady Queen? Seriously? Since when has there been a Lord Queen? (In terms of noble rank, that is!) Those missteps aside, however, she started out doing a great job and winning me over to Bitterblue's side.
Bitterblue is bored and finds being a queen tedious, especially given that she's beset by four antique advisers who ply her with endless work. Why she doesn't see something wrong with this to begin with is a mystery, and how King Ror (who supposedly set her queendom on a secure and rational footing before she was installed as queen) managed to bungle this so badly is a mystery, but it does offer a ready pretext for Bitterblue's adventures. She starts sneaking out of the castle and hanging out in bars, in disguise. No, it's not like that. The bars she visits feature story tellers, and she finds herself fascinated by how these fables which are related in the taverns differ from the actual facts which she knows.
Bitterblue is an interesting character, far more so than Fire, Cashore's previous hero, who I found a bit tedious at times. No, this novel is more like Graceling and Bitterblue is a charmer - smart, funny, curious about everything, and with a seriously funny sense of humor. Unfortunately, she's capable of being really stupid! It's inevitable that her curiosity and boredom will lure her into sneaking around where she isn't supposed to be, including those trips in disguise into the town and its taverns, but that's not where her stupidity lies.
As she undertakes more of these extra-curricular excursions, she becomes acquainted with the realities of life, as well as the unrealities: the weird things which are happening all around her of which she's been unaware - like people stealing gargoyles from the castle walls. Indeed, she befriends the very people who are doing the stealing, without at first realizing it is they who are behind it; then one of them gets into a fight and is stabbed, and instead of bringing the healer they demand she brings, she fetches the castle healer.
Bitterblue's adventures start with her nocturnal wanderings in the city, but her discovery activities are by no means confined there; however, it’s there that she meets Saf and Teddy, the two thieves, and their respective sisters, Bren and Tilda who are an item. Saf seems to have no vocation other than thievery which appears to be confined to stealing and returning items which King Leck had stolen from his citizens during his despotic reign. He also evidently steals some silver once in a while from shipments coming from the mines and going to the palace. Teddy's day job is running a printing press, but no one will tell Bitterblue what it is they print. None of these people have a clue who she really is. She fobs them off with a story that she works in the bakery at the palace which is how she knew the palace healer, and how she knows something of what goes on in the palace.
Bitterblue starts to discover that Leck made many changes during his reign, including changing funeral ceremonies, kidnapping many children for experimentation, and building bridges over the Dell river (which used to be called the Silver river); bridges which went effectively nowhere (there is only swamp on the opposite side of the river). It was on one of these bridges that he supposedly burned Ashen (Bitterblue's mother) after her death, rather than bury her, as was traditional before he came along. He also wrote diaries which have all apparently been lost, and compelled his groundskeeper to create topiaries which were often transformative in nature, such as one of Bitterblue herself changing from a girl into a castle. He hired a sculptor to create statues of this same nature, too - and then had the sculptor killed.
Katsa and Po (the protagonists of Graceling) show up at the palace, Po having installed himself already in Bitterblue's rooms awaiting her return one morning from one of her nights out. She seems not to be bothered that a guy will show up in her bedroom without even asking leave. Po is becoming increasingly depressed by the secrecy around his grace, wanting to reveal it to everyone. Bitterblue advises him to take it slowly. Later Katsa arrives and Bitterblue feels a bit left out by their obvious and total engagement with each other to the exclusion of pretty much everything and everyone else. Po and Katsa play only a peripheral role in this novel, which is all about Bitterblue.
Along with Po, Lord Giddon also shows up, and Bitterblue begins to form a friendship with him even though he's some ten years her senior. She begins to confide in him and ask his advice. She's invited to a meeting of the council even though she's technically not a part of it. This meeting reintroduces her to the library, which she visited often as a child, but which she has neglected completely since she became queen. She has a desk set up under a portrait of Fire, although she has no idea who the woman is or what her relationship with Leck was. She discovers that Leck destroyed thousands of books which the librarian, graced with an eidetic memory, is slowly and painstakingly restoring. Bitterblue takes one of his rewritten manuscripts to Teddy and bids him print it so it can once again find its way into public hands, but then she loses interest in this activity.
She finds she's slowly beginning to recall things from her childhood - either triggered by one or other of her new activities - such as visiting the library or learning to sword-fight, or which comes back to her in what she first thinks is a dream but realizes is actually a memory. She sets in motion several investigations: to discover how much Leck stole so that reparations can be made, to investigate how people were buried before Leck changed things, and to learn about solstice and equinox holidays which were banned after Leck came to power, although these investigations seem to disappear from the story as soon as they're set in motion.
Bitterblue feels like she has some bizarre pieces of a complex jigsaw, but she cannot figure out how they go together, and she learns that in addition to the secret society of 'restoration thieves', of which Saf is a part, there is also a counter-society of 'leave well alone' people, who do not want anyone digging into the past and unearthing painful and horrific memories of Leck's reign. There's an attempt by one of the latter group to kidnap Bitterblue, orchestrated by Lord Danzhol, who knocks out her adviser, Thiel, and tries to haul her out of the palace with him, but Bitterblue stabs him fatally. A graced woman called Hava, whose grace is to be able to effectively disappear into the background, was apparently an unwitting co-conspirator. She's still at large, and Bitterblue wants to track her down, although that plan also effectively fails.
By accident, Bitterblue visits Saf and Teddy on one of the quarterly holidays, which are still celebrated in secret by the populace. She learns this when she enters their premises and everyone is wearing colorful make-up and everyone is kissing everyone else. When Bitterblue kisses Saf, the kiss isn't at all perfunctory or ceremonial - it goes on and on and on, and later, it goes on and one some more in a graveyard on her way back to the palace!
Cashore, who had done such a sterling job with her writing overall, really lets the door swing open to Le Stupide when we start getting into page 250 and beyond, and that door swings right into her ass. I remarked earlier that Bitterblue is very smart, but she completely betrayed my confidence in her by being so alarmingly moronic at this point, that I very nearly wanted to disown her!
Let me lead into this by relating that after her night of kissing Saf in the graveyard, Bitterblue decides for reasons unexplained that she can never ever see him again. Very shortly afterwards, and completely on impulse power, she decides to visit the courtroom once more, and who should be on trial for murder but Saf himself! I'm sorry, but his was far too coincidental to suspend my disbelief. Her presence there could have been handled far more wisely. But it gets worse.
Saf is completely flummoxed (yes, flummoxed!) to discover that the wayward girl he's known as "Sparks", is actually the queen! Bitterblue discovers that he couldn't have killed the murder victim because that was the night she was with him sitting on the roof of the printing shop gazing at the stars. They ended up there after running from a hunting party that seems to have targeted Saf for reasons as unknown as they are unreasonable. This targeting of Saf is a problem about which Bitterblue has done exactly nothing. Her ability to be both aware of appalling injustice and crime, and yet to take absolutely zero steps towards combating it is infuriating, and it’s especially irksome given that she's supposed to be developing feelings for Saf. Why has she not ordered patrols to police the city and reduce this kind of victimization and crime, thereby protecting the man with whom she's supposedly falling in love? No explanation! But it gets worse.
She can’t exactly blurt out that Saf is innocent because she was with him on the roof! She could have made up some story that he was with her on the palace grounds, but even this is apparently too much for her, so in panic, she calls on Po. He masterfully steps up to the plate, claiming that he was with Saf on the roof. This releases Saf from all charges despite the judge's bias against him.
Bitterblue invites Saf to her rooms to explain to him her masquerade as "anyone-but-the-queen" and to apologize for deceiving him, but Saf behaves like a five year old, which almost totally turned me off him. What did complete that migration away from him was that when he leaves the palace, he steals from her like the jerk that he is. I'm sorry, but Saf is now out of my regard altogether. His behavior is unforgivable. Bitterblue risked her reputation to save his life and instead of being grateful, he insults her and then steals from her, and he steals not something which is a mere trinket, but the actual royal crown! The petulant son of a bitch deserves to be hanged for treason!
Now Cashore has succeeded in making Saf abhorrent to me, when she really ought to have been trying to win me over, because I was hardly a fanboi of his in the first place. Bitterblue deserves better bootie. I much prefer Lord Giddon for her, but he's probably going to end up with someone like Fox - another of Bitterblue's graced entourage - who actually might be a better match for him anyway. Fox is a sort of palace handywoman who hangs around cleaning and doing odd jobs while training as a spy. I'm not sure I trust her, but I would love to read a story about her. She's the one who picks the locks so that Bitterblue and Helda can investigate Leck's private bedroom, which is hidden away downstairs in the midst of a maze and which also holds about forty bizarre sculptures.
All this to get you to the point where I can discuss Bitterblue's rank stupidity! So here it is: despite the fact that she knows that she's being targeted, and despite the fact that she's been viciously attacked on more than one occasion, and despite the fact that Saf & Co now know that she's the queen, she sneaks out alone yet again onto the streets to visit them and apologize yet again to this lowlife thief who has treasonously betrayed his queen. She takes no guards with her and so of course she's attacked and stabbed, and has her arm broken!
If I were not so invested in Cashore as such a noteworthy writer, I would probably have quit reading this novel at this point, because this portion of it is far too stupid to read; however, in view of how much good Cashore has done so far over three novels, I was willing to let her off with a caution for this questionable behavior, in the dearest hope that she isn't a repeat offender! She is so much better than this and I hate to see her work sagging so badly in the middle.
So now Bitterblue is in the position of having to beg an ingrate, a thief, and a traitor for the return of her crown. Saf doesn't even have it! He gave it to a "fence" to hold for him, and that fence passed it on to a relative, so now no one knows where the crown is, and Bitterblue has failed again to act because she wants to keep this crime a secret to protect a thief who does nothing but childishly taunt and insult her.
Meanwhile we have Po on more than one occasion flying paper airplanes, as though paper is the cheapest thing on the planet, which given their state of technological development, it most certainly is not, and we have Po encouraging Bitterblue to befriend Hava, the chameleon graced girl who was one of the team who was trying to kidnap her! Bitterblue meets her in the sculpture room of the palace and starts the two of them on the track to friendship. I had thought at this point that given what we'd learned of Fox and Hava, and Po's planes, we were going to see an interesting finale to this novel. That didn't happen!
I have to say in passing here that Bitterblue's comprehensive ignorance regarding palace geography and composition is an inexplicable mystery. Was she, as a child, completely and utterly incurious about her surroundings? What preteen child wouldn't run riot around such a place, exploring secret passages and out-of-the-way nooks and crannies? Bitterblue seems to have confined herself to such a limited area that it's really not credible.
My disgust with Bitterblue and Saf vis-à-vis their pathetic and abusive relationship continued to be exacerbated. Po hires Saf to "caulk the windows" - like anyone caulked anything other than boats in that era! Seriously? As soon as Bitterblue learns this she runs after him like a bitch in heat, first to espy where he is on the castle walls (caulking away with Fox on what amounts to a window washer's platform). Once she knows his location, she immediately races inside and up to that floor, where she opens the window and invites him in. She again apologizes profusely to this worthless piece of gutter effluent, so of course, he proceeds to treat her like trash! Again!
Later, Giddon catches Saf wandering around in the maze which surrounds Leck's bedroom, and when he's searched, he's found to be carrying Fox's lock-pick tools along with some keys, so this lowlife jerk-off is continuing with his thievery even though he has been hired to work at the castle. When he's brought into her presence and all of this reported, he trash-talks Bitterblue (and thankfully gets cuffed by Giddon for his mouth), and this STILL isn’t enough to get him into Bitterblue's bad graces. She even chides Giddon for hitting him!
Frankly, I was really, truly, and honestly having a bad time with this novel at that point. It had been really great up to where Le Stupide reared its ugly head, and for the most part it was pretty good even then (interspersed with the dumbassery as it was), but these behaviors really kicked my suspension of disbelief (SoD) in the grass.
There was a bright spark which kept me going, which was Katsa's return, but she really didn't have a lot to offer in this novel. She was investigating one of the mountain tunnels and discovered another tunnel which smelled interesting to her. When she investigated it, she discovered a monster rat (of the kind found in the companion novel Fire - that is not monster in size, but in traits and in pelt coloration). Katsa brings the pelt back, and Bitterblue immediately 'orders' her to return and follow the tunnel through, to see what's at the other end. Clearly, she realizes, while King Leck's reality was a horrible nightmare, his fantasies as exemplified in art and in the topiaries, was real!
Even though Bitterblue has no authority whatsoever over Katsa, the latter agrees to use up some of her valuable time to investigate this new world. Yeah, it’s incredible that neither person nor creature has ever been over the mountains in either direction, not even the vicious, ravenous raptors, but I am willing to let that slide for the sake of finding out what's going to happen with this unique culture clash. It turned out: not much.
Meanwhile all her distant friends who had come visiting are now dispersing: Katsa to the tunnel, Po and Raffin elsewhere, Madlen the healer (along with Saf the scum) to investigate all the bones which Giddon has discovered were in the river - perhaps the last remnants of Leck's insanity. Fox has owned up to finding, and then losing some keys, of which no one seems to know the origin or the purpose, but when Bitterblue wanders the castle again, she finds that the keys fit Leck's secret rooms, and within his secret rooms is a secret room containing his diaries - but they're written in "code". So despite some disappointment, there is enough to keep on going here - including more disappointment! Yes, it's the return of Le Stupide!
So it turns out that Fox is more foxy than we've hitherto been given to believe! I told you her story was worth telling, didn't I? She's the criminal who is holding the crown and a host of other royal loot. What does Bitterblue do when she learns of this? Does she send a host of her military in there to arrest and retrieve? Hell no! Why back a sure thing when you can screw up royally yet again? She lets Saf the Lowlife talk her into letting him go in alone; then he gets caught with the crown and attacked by ruffians, and ends up throwing the crown into the river!
It's hard to imagine anything worse than that, but it also turns out that all of Bitterblue's four advisers - the ones expertly chosen for her by King Ror - have betrayed her and have been covering up evidence of things they did under King Leck's influence, including killing people who got too near the truth. But Bitterblue is ready to forgive them no matter what! In the end, Thiel kills one of them and then himself, and another kills himself in prison, leaving only one of them, whom Bitterblue releases from prison and merely places him under house arrest! Seriously?
As far as the diaries go, it turns out that they were written in monster-speak, but don't worry, Thiel took care of burning most of them before he died. And then Lady Fire shows up accompanying Katsa back from the Dell-y. And from there the novel just fizzles with the usual muddy Cashore ending. But no, Bitterblue ends up neither with Saf nor Giddon, so no worries there.
Once again the ending was a bit sad - not within itself, but from my perspective of it not being as good as other parts of the novel. Kudos to Cashore for not feeling compelled to end her novels with "happily ever after", but that still doesn't mean they're satisfying: they're muddy and disappointingly dissipated. They don't feel like a climax. They feel like Cashore got bored with the writing, or got stuck for a good ending or something, and just let the threads of the story come loose in her hands. It didn't even feel like an ending and in some stories, that's a good thing, but not in this trilogy. This novel had lost too many things for me before it ended, though.
Of the trilogy, Graceling is by far the best - several levels above the other two. After that I'd place Bitterblue, despite having a few too many issues with it. I'd put Fire last, but that doesn't mean it's not a worthy read. Overall I'm disappointed in this trilogy, but I love so much of Cashore's writing in it that I'm willing to let the disappointment slide in favor of recommending all three.
