Lea (drumsofautumn)'s Reviews > Seasparrow

1.) Graceling ★★★★★
2.) Fire ★★★★★
3.) Bitterblue ★★★★★
4.) Winterkeep ★★★★★

Cashore's ability to fully pull me back into the Graceling world, no matter how long it's been since the last time, is truly a special gift. While Seasparrow was probably the weakest in the series for me, I still enjoyed this journey thoroughly.

The Graceling Realm and its characters is one that I have loved for many, many years now and I cherish every time that we get a new story set in its world. I was very excited to read from Hava's perspective and as always, Cashore manages to write a wonderfully flawed character. Hava is probably the most unlikeable out of all the main characters but it WORKS. Her character development throughout this story is wonderful and albeit often unlikeable, her thoughts, reactions and decisions are simply human.

In a lot of way this story was very reminiscent of the first book because it was a story of survival more than anything. And while it stayed true to the characteristics of the series I think this is also where the book fell short for me. While I will always be happy to read more about this world and its characters, I didn't quite find enough new and engaging content in this book.
What I loved so much about Winterkeep was the absolute novelty of the world we got to explore in it, while still feeling familiar in some many ways. There was just something about Seasparrow that put me out of my comfort of the usual series and I can't quite put my finger on what it was. But maybe that is also exactly what this series needed.

As always, Cashore excels at writing about trauma and healing from it. There is a lot of trauma that Hava still deals with from her childhood that is wonderfully explored in this. It's one of the things that I enjoy about this series - Cashore always gives these characters the chance to fully work through their trauma and it's why I think that, despite Hava not being my favourite to read from, her getting her own novel made complete sense and it is truly what this character deserved. I also feel like Cashore puts a lot of effort into making this series more "modern" by revisiting things that have happened in earlier books and putting them into a different perspective in a way that wasn't so common back in the 2000s and it is absolutely lovely to witness how she's able to go with the times without it feeling unnatural at all.

There is also the trauma that this group of characters goes through together during this story and how it changes not only them as individuals but also their relationships with each other. I can't say too much about this aspect as I would give too many things away but the way that it was talked about how life changing the experiences were for everyone and how it's connected them was really interesting to read.

Overall, while I have to admit I wasn't quite as engaged with this story as I was with any of the other Graceling books, it is still a great edition to the world. Hava's story is a wonderful and important one to tell and I'm so glad that Cashore decided to give her a spotlight.

PS: I WILL PROTECT LINNY AT ALL COSTS!