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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was an epic book to get through and I really enjoyed reading it. While I haven't read the first book in the duology, I was able to pick up the storyline easily, and the map inside the book was useful. I don't usually read epic fantasy, but I like this. My favourite characters are Zoya and Nikolai, although their ridiculously slow burn romance was hard to endure! What's not to love about a demon king who used to be a pirate?
more of a 4.25/4.5 plotwise.
let me get this off my chest, HOW DARE YOU LEIGH (x2)!!!!!!! first matthias..... now DAVID?? why must you kill the good ones D: i was shocked by david's death and on the day of his vow renewal to genya was so cruel omfg. she really leveled up in the PAIN she put on me after matthias.
now my favorite part of this book was certainly the crow kid's cameos. Kaz, Jesper, & Wylan's little mini heist with my Nikolai and Zoya... that's what DREAMS ARE MADE OF!! give me another book of Kaz doing another heist with Nikolai right this instant!!!!! it still warms my heart to see Kaz do literally ANYTHING to keep Inej safe so there's that. when Wylan heard the heist was for Inej and immediately agreed to it, i felt that. i loved the inej pop up at the end of book, and her, of course, noticing Alina. now that last line better give me another Six of Crows book heist or i will certainly die!!!!!!! "Get a message to the Crow Club. Tell Kaz Brekker that the queen of Ravka has a job for him."
genuinely love Nikolai getting to accept himself, as the bastard and the demon, throughout this book and letting go of being royal. i really do love his character so so much, and hope that he gets to go to that tavern in noyvi zem to see his real father like he deserves. i do think it was convenient to make Zoya queen, but did i love the choice? yes, because she's absolutely a queen. she deserves nothing but the best and that includes being queen and getting a former king as her prince consort. i really loved their slow burn from friends to lovers storyline. it was *chefs kiss*
lastly, i love nina finding peace and being able to keep her promise to matthias. i still get teary eyed anytime she mentions him, but i know that he'd be proud and happy that nina found a way to love another fjerdan and become queen to his people.
ok plotwise.. the darkling stuff.... was a no for me, but all the same i hope he enjoys his endless pain :)
anyways........ "give me six of crows #3 or give me death" - actual quote from Patrick Henry that is relatable
let me get this off my chest, HOW DARE YOU LEIGH (x2)!!!!!!! first matthias..... now DAVID?? why must you kill the good ones D: i was shocked by david's death and on the day of his vow renewal to genya was so cruel omfg. she really leveled up in the PAIN she put on me after matthias.
now my favorite part of this book was certainly the crow kid's cameos. Kaz, Jesper, & Wylan's little mini heist with my Nikolai and Zoya... that's what DREAMS ARE MADE OF!! give me another book of Kaz doing another heist with Nikolai right this instant!!!!! it still warms my heart to see Kaz do literally ANYTHING to keep Inej safe so there's that. when Wylan heard the heist was for Inej and immediately agreed to it, i felt that. i loved the inej pop up at the end of book, and her, of course, noticing Alina. now that last line better give me another Six of Crows book heist or i will certainly die!!!!!!! "Get a message to the Crow Club. Tell Kaz Brekker that the queen of Ravka has a job for him."
genuinely love Nikolai getting to accept himself, as the bastard and the demon, throughout this book and letting go of being royal. i really do love his character so so much, and hope that he gets to go to that tavern in noyvi zem to see his real father like he deserves. i do think it was convenient to make Zoya queen, but did i love the choice? yes, because she's absolutely a queen. she deserves nothing but the best and that includes being queen and getting a former king as her prince consort. i really loved their slow burn from friends to lovers storyline. it was *chefs kiss*
lastly, i love nina finding peace and being able to keep her promise to matthias. i still get teary eyed anytime she mentions him, but i know that he'd be proud and happy that nina found a way to love another fjerdan and become queen to his people.
ok plotwise.. the darkling stuff.... was a no for me, but all the same i hope he enjoys his endless pain :)
anyways........ "give me six of crows #3 or give me death" - actual quote from Patrick Henry that is relatable
This was a complete mess but I'm giving it 3 stars because despite all its many faults, I still enjoyed it. This book suffered from trying to do too many things and in the end not doing any of them particularly well.
I gave King of Scars 5 stars despite its many problems because I reasoned that there was still a second book, and we were surely going to get explanations for the seeming contradictions that it introduced. Unfortunately we didn't, and that was extremely frustrating. I will say more about this in the spoilers section later on. Similarly to KoS, the first half of this book was the strongest and there were definitely some beautiful moments. I made lots of highlights in my Kindle app, particularly during some of the softer moments between Nikolai and Zoya. The middle of the book was extremely frustrating, and then it picked up again towards the end.
I also enjoyed Nina's POV a lot, and I thought one thing Leigh did particularly well was showing that you can't just hate a whole nation of people. Nina is right to question Fjerda and to be angry at them. But Hanne also has the right to love her parents and feel conflicted. I particularly liked the way Hanne's mother, Ylva, was written. It added depth to her family and made the difficult choices that needed to be made feel even more real.
I give credit to Leigh for making me like certain characters only to be shocked by their true behaviour, and for making me believe certain things were going to happen that didn't. So she's still able to surprise me.
In places, the plot was spectacular. But in other places it dragged. It was a strange mixture of everything happening but also nothing happening, because so many characters get a POV that you can easily lose track of what's happening in another character's storyline, so it felt like ages between chapters. I loved the first battle scene and was really looking forward to some solid military strategy and politicking, and in the moments where we got that I was satisfied. I don't think we needed to hear from the monk or Mayu, the book was full enough without either of them.
Ultimately, this didn't really feel like Nikolai's duology, continuing one of the biggest problems with KoS. I almost considered DNFing this not because I hated it, I didn't, but because I was getting a bit bored. Which should tell you a lot, considering how excited I'd been before it was released.
Spoilers
I don't think the Darkling should have returned. He didn't actually add a lot to the story, and his character fluctuated between being remorseful and evil. His back and forth was annoying and because there were so many other things going on, it felt like in the end he didn't serve much of a purpose and was just taking up space I'd have rather seen devoted to something else. I don't care that we didn't get Darklina endgame because really, does anyone still actually think that will happen? In my opinion it was perfectly clear even at the very beginning of Shadow and Bone that it would never happen, and it would be toxic and gross so why would anyone want it. Having said that, I do understand why Darkling stans are upset because it feels like he was brought back just so Leigh could make a point, and that isn't good writing at all. If he hadn't come back from the dead the plot would have actually been stronger, or at the very least, nothing would have been taken from it.
The bits we got to see of Alina felt pointless. She didn't seem like the same girl she was at the end of Ruin and Rising, and I can put some of that down to time passing. But again, it just felt like Leigh wanted to make a point rather than include her for plot purposes. So I hated the whole Darkling plot line in the end. It was a distraction from the actual plot of the book and I cannot understand why anyone, including the editors who read this book, would have thought it was a good idea. His ending didn't make me feel anything because he was so unimportant in the end why would I care? He didn't feel much like a threat, so I didn't feel the anticipation and fear of wondering what would happen. There was only ever going to be one ending for him. The fact that it was all neatly resolved in only a few pages was just another nod to how pointless that whole plot had been. And then, she still won't let it go. He's not even technically ended and a future book will still be, if indirectly, about ending him for good. This is such a richly complex world with so many things happening, and yet she can't just let him rest and move on to something new. It's exhausting.
I'm not sure how I feel about David dying. At least it was early on enough in the book to make an actual difference. It changes how the war will be fought, because David was so skilled and so Ravka loses one of their biggest assets. It also changes the dynamics between the characters and makes them question everything they are doing and what they are fighting for. But on the other hand, poor Genya. Hasn't she been through enough? So I'm not mad about it, just a little sad, and I guess that's ok. I need to think about this. The death count was low overall and the reality is that people die and at least it did change some of the ways the characters behaved after. But again, if the story had more of a focus I think I would have felt it more deeply.
I love Zoya but also what is the point of her powers? This is one of the biggest problems I have with the series. Leigh changed everything we know about the magic introduced in previous Grisha books by giving Zoya more powers at the end of KoS. I was hoping it would be explained. Why must the world be balanced, and power limited, but it is ok for Zoya to have the power she does? I was expecting to see her training Grisha to go beyond the boundaries of their traditional orders. But for most of the book Zoya just talks about how she hasn't mastered the dragon's power and how she's resisting it. But we don't really get a good enough explanation as to why that is. In the end we got another overly strong character, blessed with all the power, and no good reason was given for it. The reason we got didn't really feel like enough.
Nikolai was great when we actually got to spend time with him. Which tells you a lot about how little he was in the story. The moments between him and Zoya were perfect and they are the majority of my highlights and in many ways why I kept reading. I'm glad they got their happiness in the end. I wanted so much more from him and I'm sad that he was side-lined for ridiculous mini plots that added nothing.
I'd have been ok with the Crows coming back if it hadn't felt like complete fan service. Again, if the plot had been stripped down so that we had a more focussed story, it could have worked really well. But I couldn't figure out if this was a book about fighting the Darkling, or fighting a war. In the end it was just another thread added to a plot that already had far too many as it was. They weren't in the book enough for it to be meaningful, so it just felt like they were thrown in so Leigh could make fans happy. It feels like she knows how hyped SoC was and so wants to build on that, rather than revisiting the characters because she actually cares about them. It makes me so sad because Nikolai definitely deserved his own books, but we never really got that.
This could have been a really strong duology if it was concerned with Nikolai trying to sort out the mess that is Ravka after the civil war. I'd have still been happy for Nina to have her POV as it ended up being really interesting and was more closely tied to the overall story than it was in KoS. There was no need to bring the Darkling back because there was enough plot without him. I wanted to see more military strategy, more battles, more of Nikolai trying to deal with Ravka's ministers. I wanted to see him outthinking Fjerda and Shu Han. And in the moments where that happened, the series was strong. But for all it is supposed to be Nikolai's series, those moments are few and far between.
I enjoyed Nina's pov though I'm still not fully convinced on how it ended. She hasn't known Hanne for very long and suddenly she's committing to spending the rest of her life with her in Fjerda? How convenient. I really liked watching Nina spying from within Fjerda and trying to gather information to help her country. And I appreciated that we got to know Hanne a little better. Her arc had so much potential but in the end it felt really rushed and I couldn't understand Nina's decision after only a few months of knowing one another. It was kind of annoying, in the end.
I gave it 3 stars because there are some great moments, and I didn't hate it. 1 star books make me feel actual rage and this was honestly just exhausting more than anything else. It wasn't the book we deserved, but it was the one we got, and I'm prepared to let it go and move on. Leigh used to be one of my all-time favourite authors and her books will always hold a special place in my heart. There are some very beautiful lines in this book and I am glad that I read it. I wish she had given it the care and attention that would have made it something great, rather than incredibly average. I feel like she's just not invested anymore in these characters. And that's totally ok, you can't stay with the same characters forever and ever. But instead of bowing out gracefully and saying she couldn't in good faith deliver on a Nikolai series, she wrote this duology but didn't give it her all. It really shows in the lack of promotion for the book. If you look at her Twitter it's mostly about the Netflix show. And I understand that, for multiple reasons. It's new and exciting. It will bring in a much bigger audience. It's something she's been able to work on, when many authors don't get to do that. But it still makes me sad that this book is getting very few mentions, showing how little it matters in the end.
Honestly it's probably a 2 star read but it gets 3 because I'm a Zoyalai simp and I can acknowledge my faults.
UPDATE March 29th
Do you know what tomorrow is? Do you know? Because I know.
And stop rating this book when it hasn't even been released.
Update march 9th
I reread King of Scars in preparation and now I don't know what to do with myself because it was as fun and painful as I remembered. And I still have to wait weeks for this book.
Please just let Zoyalai be ok.
Update Feb 24: I am not ok. Not even a little bit.
I read the first chapter that Leigh posted online and I am not sure I have it in me to wait 34 more days. I may actually expire.
I am sure Makhi is going to cause chaos and I cannot wait.
February 2021
I actually feel a bit sick. In a good way, I think. We only have a little over a month left. This book cannot disappoint me.
After the ending to a certain series last year was so utterly awful, I'm very nervous about getting my hopes up for books now.
But Leigh has never, ever disappointed me, so surely I can count on her?
December 2020
Good god I cannot wait for this book. Honestly it better not disappoint me!
I gave King of Scars 5 stars despite its many problems because I reasoned that there was still a second book, and we were surely going to get explanations for the seeming contradictions that it introduced. Unfortunately we didn't, and that was extremely frustrating. I will say more about this in the spoilers section later on. Similarly to KoS, the first half of this book was the strongest and there were definitely some beautiful moments. I made lots of highlights in my Kindle app, particularly during some of the softer moments between Nikolai and Zoya. The middle of the book was extremely frustrating, and then it picked up again towards the end.
I also enjoyed Nina's POV a lot, and I thought one thing Leigh did particularly well was showing that you can't just hate a whole nation of people. Nina is right to question Fjerda and to be angry at them. But Hanne also has the right to love her parents and feel conflicted. I particularly liked the way Hanne's mother, Ylva, was written. It added depth to her family and made the difficult choices that needed to be made feel even more real.
I give credit to Leigh for making me like certain characters only to be shocked by their true behaviour, and for making me believe certain things were going to happen that didn't. So she's still able to surprise me.
In places, the plot was spectacular. But in other places it dragged. It was a strange mixture of everything happening but also nothing happening, because so many characters get a POV that you can easily lose track of what's happening in another character's storyline, so it felt like ages between chapters. I loved the first battle scene and was really looking forward to some solid military strategy and politicking, and in the moments where we got that I was satisfied. I don't think we needed to hear from the monk or Mayu, the book was full enough without either of them.
Ultimately, this didn't really feel like Nikolai's duology, continuing one of the biggest problems with KoS. I almost considered DNFing this not because I hated it, I didn't, but because I was getting a bit bored. Which should tell you a lot, considering how excited I'd been before it was released.
Spoilers
I don't think the Darkling should have returned. He didn't actually add a lot to the story, and his character fluctuated between being remorseful and evil. His back and forth was annoying and because there were so many other things going on, it felt like in the end he didn't serve much of a purpose and was just taking up space I'd have rather seen devoted to something else. I don't care that we didn't get Darklina endgame because really, does anyone still actually think that will happen? In my opinion it was perfectly clear even at the very beginning of Shadow and Bone that it would never happen, and it would be toxic and gross so why would anyone want it. Having said that, I do understand why Darkling stans are upset because it feels like he was brought back just so Leigh could make a point, and that isn't good writing at all. If he hadn't come back from the dead the plot would have actually been stronger, or at the very least, nothing would have been taken from it.
The bits we got to see of Alina felt pointless. She didn't seem like the same girl she was at the end of Ruin and Rising, and I can put some of that down to time passing. But again, it just felt like Leigh wanted to make a point rather than include her for plot purposes. So I hated the whole Darkling plot line in the end. It was a distraction from the actual plot of the book and I cannot understand why anyone, including the editors who read this book, would have thought it was a good idea. His ending didn't make me feel anything because he was so unimportant in the end why would I care? He didn't feel much like a threat, so I didn't feel the anticipation and fear of wondering what would happen. There was only ever going to be one ending for him. The fact that it was all neatly resolved in only a few pages was just another nod to how pointless that whole plot had been. And then, she still won't let it go. He's not even technically ended and a future book will still be, if indirectly, about ending him for good. This is such a richly complex world with so many things happening, and yet she can't just let him rest and move on to something new. It's exhausting.
I'm not sure how I feel about David dying. At least it was early on enough in the book to make an actual difference. It changes how the war will be fought, because David was so skilled and so Ravka loses one of their biggest assets. It also changes the dynamics between the characters and makes them question everything they are doing and what they are fighting for. But on the other hand, poor Genya. Hasn't she been through enough? So I'm not mad about it, just a little sad, and I guess that's ok. I need to think about this. The death count was low overall and the reality is that people die and at least it did change some of the ways the characters behaved after. But again, if the story had more of a focus I think I would have felt it more deeply.
I love Zoya but also what is the point of her powers? This is one of the biggest problems I have with the series. Leigh changed everything we know about the magic introduced in previous Grisha books by giving Zoya more powers at the end of KoS. I was hoping it would be explained. Why must the world be balanced, and power limited, but it is ok for Zoya to have the power she does? I was expecting to see her training Grisha to go beyond the boundaries of their traditional orders. But for most of the book Zoya just talks about how she hasn't mastered the dragon's power and how she's resisting it. But we don't really get a good enough explanation as to why that is. In the end we got another overly strong character, blessed with all the power, and no good reason was given for it. The reason we got didn't really feel like enough.
Nikolai was great when we actually got to spend time with him. Which tells you a lot about how little he was in the story. The moments between him and Zoya were perfect and they are the majority of my highlights and in many ways why I kept reading. I'm glad they got their happiness in the end. I wanted so much more from him and I'm sad that he was side-lined for ridiculous mini plots that added nothing.
I'd have been ok with the Crows coming back if it hadn't felt like complete fan service. Again, if the plot had been stripped down so that we had a more focussed story, it could have worked really well. But I couldn't figure out if this was a book about fighting the Darkling, or fighting a war. In the end it was just another thread added to a plot that already had far too many as it was. They weren't in the book enough for it to be meaningful, so it just felt like they were thrown in so Leigh could make fans happy. It feels like she knows how hyped SoC was and so wants to build on that, rather than revisiting the characters because she actually cares about them. It makes me so sad because Nikolai definitely deserved his own books, but we never really got that.
This could have been a really strong duology if it was concerned with Nikolai trying to sort out the mess that is Ravka after the civil war. I'd have still been happy for Nina to have her POV as it ended up being really interesting and was more closely tied to the overall story than it was in KoS. There was no need to bring the Darkling back because there was enough plot without him. I wanted to see more military strategy, more battles, more of Nikolai trying to deal with Ravka's ministers. I wanted to see him outthinking Fjerda and Shu Han. And in the moments where that happened, the series was strong. But for all it is supposed to be Nikolai's series, those moments are few and far between.
I enjoyed Nina's pov though I'm still not fully convinced on how it ended. She hasn't known Hanne for very long and suddenly she's committing to spending the rest of her life with her in Fjerda? How convenient. I really liked watching Nina spying from within Fjerda and trying to gather information to help her country. And I appreciated that we got to know Hanne a little better. Her arc had so much potential but in the end it felt really rushed and I couldn't understand Nina's decision after only a few months of knowing one another. It was kind of annoying, in the end.
I gave it 3 stars because there are some great moments, and I didn't hate it. 1 star books make me feel actual rage and this was honestly just exhausting more than anything else. It wasn't the book we deserved, but it was the one we got, and I'm prepared to let it go and move on. Leigh used to be one of my all-time favourite authors and her books will always hold a special place in my heart. There are some very beautiful lines in this book and I am glad that I read it. I wish she had given it the care and attention that would have made it something great, rather than incredibly average. I feel like she's just not invested anymore in these characters. And that's totally ok, you can't stay with the same characters forever and ever. But instead of bowing out gracefully and saying she couldn't in good faith deliver on a Nikolai series, she wrote this duology but didn't give it her all. It really shows in the lack of promotion for the book. If you look at her Twitter it's mostly about the Netflix show. And I understand that, for multiple reasons. It's new and exciting. It will bring in a much bigger audience. It's something she's been able to work on, when many authors don't get to do that. But it still makes me sad that this book is getting very few mentions, showing how little it matters in the end.
Honestly it's probably a 2 star read but it gets 3 because I'm a Zoyalai simp and I can acknowledge my faults.
UPDATE March 29th
Do you know what tomorrow is? Do you know? Because I know.
And stop rating this book when it hasn't even been released.
Update march 9th
I reread King of Scars in preparation and now I don't know what to do with myself because it was as fun and painful as I remembered. And I still have to wait weeks for this book.
Please just let Zoyalai be ok.
Update Feb 24: I am not ok. Not even a little bit.
I read the first chapter that Leigh posted online and I am not sure I have it in me to wait 34 more days. I may actually expire.
I am sure Makhi is going to cause chaos and I cannot wait.
February 2021
I actually feel a bit sick. In a good way, I think. We only have a little over a month left. This book cannot disappoint me.
After the ending to a certain series last year was so utterly awful, I'm very nervous about getting my hopes up for books now.
But Leigh has never, ever disappointed me, so surely I can count on her?
December 2020
Good god I cannot wait for this book. Honestly it better not disappoint me!
adventurous
challenging
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i have mixed feelings about this book because it felt like nothing really happened. the only parts i truly enjoyed were zoya as a whole and zoyalai, and the chapter where the crows made an appearance.
this might be an unpopular opinion, but while i agree nina moved on from matthias a bit too quickly, i adore her relationship with hanne and really appreciated the trans representation the latter brought to the story.
i honestly don’t understand why the darkling was brought back, as he added nothing to the plot. he acted so out of character and his scenes felt SO underwhelming.
overall, i feel this book was unnecessary and the series could’ve ended with king of scars (including the rule of wolves ending in it)
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated