A review by beebeewin
Seasparrow by Kristin Cashore

adventurous dark emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

What can I say, other than I was surprised by this book! I feel like at first, I was not truly getting into the story. It was quite slow at the beginning and that wasn't helped by the fact that Hava is a hard to character to like. But in the end, Hava's characterization is probably one of the best parts of this book. Hava as a character is neither good nor bad. She is someone who's been scarred by trauma and can't express her emotions or feelings because of that. This book is about her coming to terms with the trauma and working to be better. By the end you can see her growyh and how she is working on, but not yet perfected, her ability to process her emotions. As someone who's experienced a lot of childhood trauma this book felt so fucking personal. Kristin Cashore once again did a great job of writing the processing of trauma. I think I talked about this in the first three books of this series, Cashore does not hide from the trauma and the truly deep scars it leaves on people. I think the fourth book lost this thread, but it is back here. Due to the setting of the story Cashore was able to do a great job of slowly having Hava unpack the trauma she experienced and learning how to live in the world that comes afterwards. It was interesting, the survival aspect of this novel really tied in with how Hava had to survive as a child and was so well written and I assume researched. 

I definitely found myself really getting into it once it got into the second act. The third act was a lot more reflective, but that made sense for the novel narratively.  But I think the lowness at the beginning is why I'm not giving it a higher rating. It did take a while to get into and I felt like at least 100-150 pages could have been trimmed. I think Cashore was trying to build Hava's perspective but i think the rest of the novel did that well ao much could have been removed. I do appreciate Hava's perspective, it's someone who was on the outskirts, which made me way more interested in her perspective.

I also really appreciated the romance. It wasn't over the top like some other books I've been reading recently. Instead it was really the slow build, as these two people are healing themselves and want to be together as they heal with one another. It felt so honest to the story and truly lovely. 

I would definitely recommend this last book in the series (so far)! 
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