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** spoiler alert ** I liked it, but I didn't like nearly as much as Graceling. As much as I liked Fire, I couldn't relate with her or sympathize with her as much as I could with Katsa. I liked Brigan a lot though. As much as I loved Po...he was a bit too perfect. Brigan, was much more real to me. And even though I knew from the first moment he met Fire and showed his hate for her, that they would end up together, I like that it took time for their relationship to grow.

Parts of the story were unnecessarily long and drawn out, like the parts where Fire's interrogations didn't come up with anything, I feel that could have been shortened a bit. And all the time Fire spent milling around the court before she deiced to help with her powers. And I don't see what Leck's involvement in the plot had anything to add to the main story. It would have made more sense if he had been manipulating one of the rebel lords or something, but he wasn't even interested in that. And I don't understand what he wanted with Fire in the first place. I hate how pointless Archers death was and the hands of Leck. I'm not one of those people who hate the author if a main character get's killed off. It makes the story more real and life like. Life isn't fair, good people sometimes die, bad guys sometimes win. But I do get miffied if they get killed off in a lame unnecessary way. Yes, I can see how hypocritical that is... just as good people die, they can also die in lame and pointless ways. But if Archer really had to die, it would have been better for the story if Leck had been controlling one of the rebel lords and Archer had died in battle as a result of that.

And on the topic of Archer, I didn't care that he was a Man Whore, I just saw him as a typical man and I'm board of getting angry with men for doing what is instinctual for men to do. It's like getting mad at your dog for barking at people outside, ya, it's annoying, but they're doing what dogs do. Some you can train not to bark, but with others you don't have much luck, especially if the owner doesn't bother to train them in the first place. And the fact that he knocked up Princess Clara didn't bother me either, I saw that coming...It was the whole Mila situation that irked me. When you have a character like Archer, you know someone is gonna get knocked up but why not leave it with Clara? What was the point of throwing Mila into the mix? First the whole fact she was 15 with a...how old is Archer? 20? 21? But THEN after that ordeal, the King whose 28 is now hitting on her?? O~O WTF. Archer isn't that much of a stretch, but the King is almost twice her age. The King has some strange tastes...Fire, one could see he couldn't help himself with Fire's "power" or whatever...but seriously? Cashore could have done a lot better by him. She couldn't have just let Nash redeemed himself and be a good King as well as grow into a good man? Well I guess it doesn't say for sure that the King was hitting on Mila...He could just see a common kinship between her and his sister and that's why he's being nice to her...but, it's still rather suspect. And I find it a bit unsettling that the only child that was legit was Nash. Talk about families with issues.

I finished the book just to finish it, not really because I couldn't put it down like with Graceling. I wanted all the information that this book had to offer to see how the next book will tie all the books together...Bitterblue is suppose to be set 8 years after Graceling... so I don't know where Fire will be...since she was 18 when Leck, Bitterblue's father, was 11...and you don't know how old he his when he dies in Graceling...I hope the next book will be better. I'm anxious to see what has become of Katsa and Po.