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tomi_delano's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
An emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. I fell more and more in love with familiar characters and some new ones. I got very angry at other familiar characters. Spectacular writing from Leigh Bardugo as usual.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, and Xenophobia
Minor: Body shaming and Bullying
citymouse's review against another edition
3.0
Nina deserves to have her own series and her story entwined with Nikolai makes quite literally no sense. The book was good, but I would have preferred to see them as individual books rather than alternating between stories many lands apart.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use
Moderate: Abortion, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexism, and Trafficking
Minor: Animal death, Body horror, Infertility, Medical content, Religious bigotry, and Suicide attempt
its_madi's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
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? It's complicated
5.0
This review contains unmarked spoilers for the Six of Crows duology.
So I decided to give this a reread because,
A.) Rule of Wolves came out recently.
B.) I couldn’t remember if this book was actually good or if I was just blinded by Nikolai.
So after my reread I can confirm that it was actually good and it wasn’t my imagination.
This book’s strength is its ability to continue character arcs. Zoya and Nina specifically. Zoya’s character arc is really needed since we didn't get her POV in the Shadow and Bone trilogy. We get some crucial backstory on her and why she is the way she is. In as least spoilery wording as possible, her character arc is her dealing with grief and her own mistakes, some of which struck a chord with me. Nina’s arc is about her grappling with her Matthias's wishes for Nina to try and teach his people that Grisha are good, instead of outright giving up hope.
Isaak was a new character for this duology, and his scenes showed what was going on back in Ravka, while also providing some comedy. You know until the end where he DIES. I am excited that we’re getting characters who have been in Shu Han a lot so we can get more information about it. Also the foreshadowing about the princess/guard switch was really good and I audibly said “oh yeah that makes sense” several times. All in all I think he’s a good character.
I, like most people, wanted more Nikolai in this book saying that this is his series but his parts are pretty well written. Saying that Nikolai is one of my favorite book characters of all time, it's nice that he was very relatable in this book. Nikolai spends half the book fighting his demon, and the other half fighting his demons (get it, I'm hilarious). The scene where he fights his demon and his demons at the same time is so good. And when he said
So I decided to give this a reread because,
A.) Rule of Wolves came out recently.
B.) I couldn’t remember if this book was actually good or if I was just blinded by Nikolai.
So after my reread I can confirm that it was actually good and it wasn’t my imagination.
This book’s strength is its ability to continue character arcs. Zoya and Nina specifically. Zoya’s character arc is really needed since we didn't get her POV in the Shadow and Bone trilogy. We get some crucial backstory on her and why she is the way she is. In as least spoilery wording as possible, her character arc is her dealing with grief and her own mistakes, some of which struck a chord with me. Nina’s arc is about her grappling with her Matthias's wishes for Nina to try and teach his people that Grisha are good, instead of outright giving up hope.
Isaak was a new character for this duology, and his scenes showed what was going on back in Ravka, while also providing some comedy.
I, like most people, wanted more Nikolai in this book saying that this is his series but his parts are pretty well written. Saying that Nikolai is one of my favorite book characters of all time, it's nice that he was very relatable in this book. Nikolai spends half the book fighting his demon, and the other half fighting his demons (get it, I'm hilarious).
“But he knew this much: He would not rest until his country could too.
And he would never, ever turn his back on a wounded man- even if that man was him.”
I’ve never forgotten that since I read it 2 years ago. It's just so good. And such a good example of Nikolai’s character
The plot is a little all over the place. It mainly follows three different storylines with four different POVs
- Nikolai and Zoya trying to find a cure
- Isaak at the palace
- Nina in Fjerda
I don’t think that Nina’s storyline and Nikolai’s storyline go that well together but I think that will be solved in the next book. With the guy claiming to be a Lantsov. It wasn’t bad that they didn’t go together, it was just a lot, so if you don’t want to keep track of a lot this might not be for you. It also seems like it goes 1-100 real quick with the sudDENLY SAINTS ARE REAL part. Speaking of which I would have liked a little bit more time with Elizaveta and Grigori. And I’m hoping with Zoya using Juris as her amplifier we can get some stuff with Juris still.
Now for the elephant in the room,The Darklings reappearance. Now, I am a known hater of the “and they were actually alive ALLLL DAH TIMEE!!1!” trope. So the “villain from the last book returns” trope usually isn’t much better. But honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about The Darkling coming back. On one hand, I do think it cheapens the ending of Ruin and Rising and the Shadow and Bone trilogy as a whole. But on the other hand, The Darkling is an interesting villain, and is just so evil to read about. I really think it will depend on what Bardugo does with him in Rule of Wolves.
All in all, a nice spin off with a couple pacing issues here and there, but other than that pretty good. 5/5
This next part is just a list of things I’d love to see in RoW.
- Nikolai alive
- Zoya alive
- Nina alive
- NinaXHanne
- For Zoya and Genya to fight The Darkling. Not using powers, just fists and rage.
-------------------------------------------------------
Update on my list of things I wanted to happen in RoW
-Nikolai is Alive
-Zoya is Alive
-Nina is Alive and is with Hanne
- Zoya and Genya did not fight the Darkling but they were present when he stabbed himself on a tree so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Unfortunately I forgot to add David Alive to that list because I thought he would be safe. I was a fool.
I’ve never forgotten that since I read it 2 years ago. It's just so good. And such a good example of Nikolai’s character
The plot is a little all over the place. It mainly follows three different storylines with four different POVs
- Nikolai and Zoya trying to find a cure
- Isaak at the palace
- Nina in Fjerda
I don’t think that Nina’s storyline and Nikolai’s storyline go that well together but I think that will be solved in the next book.
Now for the elephant in the room,
All in all, a nice spin off with a couple pacing issues here and there, but other than that pretty good. 5/5
This next part is just a list of things I’d love to see in RoW.
- Nikolai alive
- Zoya alive
- Nina alive
- NinaXHanne
- For Zoya and Genya to fight The Darkling. Not using powers, just fists and rage.
-------------------------------------------------------
Update on my list of things I wanted to happen in RoW
-Nikolai is Alive
-Zoya is Alive
-Nina is Alive and is with Hanne
- Zoya and Genya did not fight the Darkling but they were present when he stabbed himself on a tree so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Unfortunately I forgot to add David Alive to that list because I thought he would be safe. I was a fool.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma and Drug abuse
blakethebookeater's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
lighthearted
tense
fast-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
5.0
*deep breath* READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS SERIES. GO DO IT RIGHT NOW.
https://youtu.be/_dH-mSya8uY
okay. let me calm down for a sec, but holy shit this book is amazing.
So this books interweaves the end of the Grisha trilogy and the end of the Six of Crows duology while also still being a standalone duology (I would highly recommend reading both prior series first however). It follows King Nikolai as he grapples with his country at war on multiple fronts while dealing with the darkness inside him, his general Zoya as she assists him in running the country, and also Nina as she processes recent events and also goes undercover in order to smuggle Grisha out of Fjerda.
Nikolai and Zoya are together most of the book, so it ultimately feels like there are two main stories: Nikolai & Zoya and then Nina. And that's perfectly fine. The bouncing between the two plots felt perfectly natural and I LOVED everyone's POV in this book, but especially Zoya and Nina. This book really felt like Leigh being like "oh you don't like angry, complex female characters? BOOM here's two of them and they're not Mary Sues and they get to be messy and complex and powerful and you will LOVE IT" to all the stans who bitched about Alina from the first trilogy.
This plot also went in some WILD CRAZY directions that I did NOT see coming AT ALL. And when an author does that to me, I really have to tip any hat to them because it is very hard to surprise me anymore.
Overall I loved this book with all my heart, and the characters were just so wonderful and I really hope Netflix lets the show get to these plot lines because they are honestly TOP TIER.
5/5 stars
https://youtu.be/_dH-mSya8uY
okay. let me calm down for a sec, but holy shit this book is amazing.
So this books interweaves the end of the Grisha trilogy and the end of the Six of Crows duology while also still being a standalone duology (I would highly recommend reading both prior series first however). It follows King Nikolai as he grapples with his country at war on multiple fronts while dealing with the darkness inside him, his general Zoya as she assists him in running the country, and also Nina as she processes recent events and also goes undercover in order to smuggle Grisha out of Fjerda.
Nikolai and Zoya are together most of the book, so it ultimately feels like there are two main stories: Nikolai & Zoya and then Nina. And that's perfectly fine. The bouncing between the two plots felt perfectly natural and I LOVED everyone's POV in this book, but especially Zoya and Nina. This book really felt like Leigh being like "oh you don't like angry, complex female characters? BOOM here's two of them and they're not Mary Sues and they get to be messy and complex and powerful and you will LOVE IT" to all the stans who bitched about Alina from the first trilogy.
This plot also went in some WILD CRAZY directions that I did NOT see coming AT ALL. And when an author does that to me, I really have to tip any hat to them because it is very hard to surprise me anymore.
Overall I loved this book with all my heart, and the characters were just so wonderful and I really hope Netflix lets the show get to these plot lines because they are honestly TOP TIER.
5/5 stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma and Murder
Moderate: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Pregnancy, and Violence
Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Child death
readwithria's review
adventurous
dark
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Addiction, Sexual violence, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Medical trauma, Trafficking, Genocide, and Kidnapping
Minor: Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Slavery, Murder, and Self harm
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