Hardcover, 514 Pages
YA/ Fantasy
By: Leigh Bardugo
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
“The monster is me and I am the monster.”
🌟 Oh boy, it has been 3 months since I finished this and then went into a hiatus and here I am trying to remember how people actually write reviews. This may contain spoilers for the other books but I kept it spoiler free for the book itself
🌟 Leigh Bardugo is like a superstar in the writing world, she’s an auto-buy author for me and no introductions are needed when we are talking about her.
The writing was great as usual (Not as good as Six of Crows but I didn’t expect it to be anyway). I think Bardugo knows how to hit the right balance when writing, her books have the right amount of comedy, fights, drama and seriousness!
🌟 Let’s jump to the characters as I consider this mostly a character driven book. We have our golden boy Nikolai aka King of Scars. He was one of my favorite characters in the original trilogy and he retained what makes him…him!
“You’re late,” said Zoya. “I’m the king,” said Nikolai. “That means you’re early.”
🌟 Then we have Zoya who I also like, she’s the strong female protagonist that many people like in a story. She may actually be the main character in this story, I read this 3 months so my memory is a little bit rusty but I believe that she had more pages than the other character. I read a review mentioning her romance with Nikolai and I just was like: Really, was I supposed to ship them together? I felt that the chemistry between them is a little bit off.
Zoya grows a lot on this book and although some people wanted more Nikolai and less Zoya, I wasn’t bothered by this as I love both.
🌟 There is also Nina’s POV and depending on how long you have been following me you would know how much I love Nina. She’s still the same sassy powerful grisha she was. I also did not like the romance she was getting into. I mean, after what happened in CK, I think she needs more time to move on.
🌟 What about the plot?
The first half was slow and kind of hard to get into which may not be for all readers. The second part Bardugo snapped and I was having like double the entertainment I had in part 1.
Funny thing is that I expected the major twist (which I was not happy with) and did not expect a smaller twist that was good! After reading summaries of the original trilogy, I just knew where this was going.
I mean the good part of the plot is how realistic the story is if the Grishaverse was true but the bad part was how it affects major parts of the original trilogy just to satisfy fans which is a major pet peeve for me. I can see people separated into pleased or angry groups!
🌟Summary and Prescription: I enjoyed KoS as it had great writing and characters. I was not happy with the romance and ending. This is kind of hard to judge unless you give the book a chance so if you are a fan of Bardugo’s other books, you need to read this!
I really wanted to like this one, but I barely made it past 50 pages before I got bored and gave up. 😦
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I can exactly see why! Same goes for Six of Crows. Leigh Bardugo books are hard to get into but they are worth it!
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Great review, Hamad! I actually haven’t read this one yet, even though it was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. 🙈 I’m glad you enjoyed, but I do agree that it seems odd how Nina is already be given a romantic pairing so soon after the events of CK. I don’t know much about it though, so hopefully it won’t bother me as much as I think it will! Also, I totally agree with what you said about changing the story to appease the audience.
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Thanks Kelly 😀
I think after reading you will get what I mean even more! I hope you enjoy it though!
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I got this book at Leigh’s book release tour/signing event and still haven’t read it! It’s sitting on my shelf tempting me daily but I have so many other books to catch up on first. I think Leigh’s books tend to have a slow first half then really pick up in the second part of the story, because Six of Crows was difficult for me for a bit then hit the ground running with the plot.
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Six of Crows, one of my favorite books was exactly what you described it. That’s why I think it is OK to wait until you are in the right mood for the book!
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