A review by readwithbells
Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb

5.0

I expected nothing less than perfection from a trilogy ending book from Hobb and I got it. Even better, it feels like the end of a season of a show but also a promise that we will see these characters again. And wow do I ever love these characters. I was consistently struck with how, even when switching between 10 different people with cliffhanger after cliffhanger, I was never disappointed to be reading the next perspective in the line. I liked every character. Learning to love Malta has been the craziest journey I’ve been on with a character, her selfishness in the first book was almost enough to stop reading but she became one of my absolute favourites.

As a whole, this trilogy is about trauma and the cycles of abuse. Every character experiences trauma and deals with it in their own way, learning to find their individuality in spite of what they have endured. They’re pretty bleak and deal really nonchalantly with death, rape, and torture. It shocked me in the first book and it shocked me in the third. Hobb has a real mastery of including real-life horrors with the casualness of the brutality of real life. It’s hard to read, and some endings were shockingly bittersweet. But these books are worth reading (as much as I love Fitz, I love all these characters almost as much and am so glad I took the time to read their stories). I can’t wait for the next ones. 
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