Almost exactly three years later, I still enjoyed this and don’t feel the need to change my rating. This time around, I picked up even more on the strange pacing and thinness of some of the world-building; the apparent climax of the main plot comes early and somewhat unexpectedly, in a blink-and-you’ll miss it moment of action. Then what should be a simple denouement takes a long, long time to wrap up the book. It feels as though the political intrigue is the barest excuse to have a book where people hide out in the wilderness and face injury and death, and also fall in love. Which, I want to stress, is not necessarily a bad thing, because Katsa is still an interesting character and Po is still a darling. If anything, I liked Bitterblue even better upon rereading, so the final two Parts of the book were no hardship. But that first one still feels weak in comparison, and the Council a weak conceit that doesn’t really stand up to what the story asks it to be.
