Bitterblue

Oh boy was this a disappointment. I pretty much devoured Graceling, and liked Fire all right, so I was expecting to enjoy this book. Nope!

Among the problems in this book:
The romance subplot adds nothing - unlike in Graceling and Fire. Bitterblue doesn't seem to learn about herself or grow as a person, the romance subplot seems to just teach her that kissing is nice.
Nobody ever said anything with a personality - it felt like every other line, someone was saying something either blandly or dryly. That really grinds on your nerves after a while!
The sort of overall plot - people recovering from mind control while Bitterblue discovers there are parts of the castle she's never been in - didn't really make sense given the, what, 8 year in-universe gap between this book and Graceling. I get the mind control fog was thick, but, come on. 8 years and people are still recovering?? Bitterblue's almost 18 and had no idea there was an art gallery in her home??
The TOTALLY pointless Gracelings. Okay, not every Grace has to be super interesting or super useful. But did we really have to waste page space meeting a kitchen employee who has a Grace where he can smell people and know what food they'd find most desirable at that moment? He never comes up again, and the Grace is pointless (just ask people what they want!), and it was kind of annoying.
The whole “there's nothing wrong with being gay” thing. To be clear, I'm not objecting to the message. Just, it doesn't make any sense in-universe. We don't hear of any religions that forbid homosexual relationships, and we don't hear that any of the kings have banned it, we don't hear of ANY reason in-universe why people would feel like they need to hide their same-sex relations and why Bitterblue is all “Good, I'm happy, they shouldn't have to hide it.”

The best part of this book in my opinion was Po playing with a paper airplane outside and then falling off the little stone wall. Not that I was happy he fell, it was just a cute, funny moment in a book full of bland pointlessness. I mean, maybe that scene was also pointless, but at least it was cute.