okay, I finished Winterkeep a few weeks ago, and Iāve been trying to figure out how to talk about it since. note, Iām gonna talk a good bit about my messed up childhood in this post, so if thatās not for you, feel free to keep scrolling.
I donāt know anyone else whoās read it, so I feel a little as if Iām talking to myself on this topic, but thatās 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 Bitterblueās role in this book. This is the first Cashore book Iāve read where a previous character plays a significant role in the story- I donāt 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 āOld King Nashā gets a shout-out that broke my heart, but itās several chapters before Lovisa seems to actually matter to the story at all. Thatās 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 whoās scared someoneās 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 werenāt both there to hurt her, and Lovisa isnāt 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 Lovisaās 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 Iāve learned to have from years of therapy, I can talk about it here without spiraling. But also, Lovisa isnāt there yet, and itās terrifying. Sheās 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 Lovisaās 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 doesnāt understand sex or sexual desire, though whether thatās her being asexual, or just sixteen, I couldnāt say. I understand the risks she takes in the interest of finding something to keep her afloat.
Thereās more parts to this book than I have talked about here. Thereās Nev, the exploding zilfium, the pig called Mercy, Nevās 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- itās too familiar.
I love this book. Iām glad I own it. I think it will be years before I can read it again.
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