"Every configuration of people is an entirely new universe unto itself." 
 read while drinking angry orchard in the breeze of cool summer nights 
 First of all, I know everyone wanted to read more about Katsa and Po, but when I saw that there was a book about BITTERBLUE I was just like 
 Because as much as I wanted to see more Saf in this book, I wanted to see more of Bitterblue in Graceling. 
 AND WE STILL GET TO KEEP TABS ON KATSA AND PO? 
 So basically I really liked this book, despite much of the criticism it has received, and I honestly just don't understand a lot of the criticism. I thought the world building in this series was awesome, despite some of the obvious names of the territories on the map, and I loved learning about the Dellians and their history. I can't wait to read Fire now and learn more about all of these new people. 
 I had only 2 complaints with this book: 
 1) I wish we had seen more of Saf, although I understood why we didn't. I like the Cashore doesn't write perfect endings. I like that even though we didn't see a lot of Saf, we still saw his character develop. I liked that his Grace was something wonderful that brought him peace of mind and that Bitterblue was the one to help him figure it out. I think Saf will love the Dells and I'm excited for him to be happy. 
 2) I wish we had learned why Leck had been evil, not just that he had been very, very manipulative and abusive of the power he had over others. I never really understood his motivation and I think it was a missed opportunity to ignore it's explanation. Why was his childhood/life experiences early on so awful that he became so cruel? 
 Other than that I loved this book. I don't think it moved too slow and it elaborated on so many things from Graceling that I was still curious about. I was so happy to see characters like Giddon moving forward with their lives and to see the consequences of Lecks reign be realized. Cashore didn't shy away from these details and left some of the future of the world to our imagination. I don't see it as a fault as much as a mental baton pass off to the reader on what they believe will happen and to let them imagine it. 
 Now I need to go read Fire before I get depressed about the fact that it is the last book in this series and Cashore has not written anything else. 
 I see a series hangover in my near future 
 but until then