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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed this trilogy, and although I found #2 a little slow, #3 really ramped it up and in my opinion, finished everything off perfectly.
WHAT A SERIES!!
Ahhh I absolutely loved it!! I hate that it took me so long to finish this last book but I’ve been having a reading slump as of late. Although I found a lot of the action in this book hard to follow I didn’t find it badly written. I really do feel satisfied with this ending and I love these characters so dearly!
Ahhh I absolutely loved it!! I hate that it took me so long to finish this last book but I’ve been having a reading slump as of late. Although I found a lot of the action in this book hard to follow I didn’t find it badly written. I really do feel satisfied with this ending and I love these characters so dearly!
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
fast-paced
dark
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
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
i always cry
book #10 for the owls magical readathon!
care of magical creatures: read a book with a beak on the cover
book #10 for the owls magical readathon!
care of magical creatures: read a book with a beak on the cover
I read these because i had watched the show. Interesting, unusually, i maybe liked the show better? But, still a fun read. I think the Crooked Kingdom books are even better.
2014 Rating: 3.5 Stars
2021 Rating: 5 Stars
Spoiler Free TLDR:
Just fantastic. Take the 5 Stars and be done with it.
Recommended for ages 16+.
---
Christian/Conservative Content Advisory;
Minor Spoilers:
-8 uses of "d*mn"
-5 uses of "a**"
-6 uses of "h**l"
-4 uses of "b*****d' (most used correctly)
-1 use of "w***e"
-f/f relationship
-4 kissing scenes
-1 Intimate Scene
-Disturbing deaths and scenes due to the Darkling
---
Thoughts and MAJOR!!! Spoilers Below:
Plot: 5/5
Quick Summary:
-Alina starts as the Apparat's prisoner
-Alina regains her powers and leaves the Apparat
-Alina and crew get ambushed, then rescued by Nikolai
-Alina an crew make plans and decide to go separate ways, until attacked by Darkling
-Alina and some of the crew go for the Firebird
-Alina learns Mal in the real third Amplifier
-They plan for battle and attack the Darkling in the Fold
-Alina kills Mal in order to achieve the Amplifier's full powers. However, she loses her powers while nearby otkazat’sya received her powers
-Alina mercy kills the Darkling with a knife
-Alina has her friends fake her death, and Mal and her reopen their childhood orphanage.
There's so much more that happens in between the really builds the story. Just take it from me, though, the plot is pretty great.
------
Writing: 5/5
------
World Building: 5/5
Fantastic in building on the lore and truth about Morozova and why everything that has happened has happened.
------
Characters' Rating: 4.5/5
Main Character, Alina: 5/5
Although I loved her arc better in Book 2, she was a great and steady character in this book as well. She was obsessed with overpowering and destroying the Darkling, as well as obtaining the Amplifier. She knew she had strayed from the innocent girl she once knew, but still strived for more power. In fact, even though she knew Mal was the third Amplifier, she still wanted power and went all the way to willingly kill him to unlock the power. When she instead loses that power, she grieves the rest of her life about that loss.
Side Characters: 5/5
I absolutely loved the side characters in this book, not limited to Zoya, Hershaw and Oncat, Misha, David, and Genya. The interactions were fabulous, and I grew to like most of these characters (not that I disliked any). The twins and Nadia were a bit boring, but I have no other complaints besides that.
-Mal: He has came miles in this book, to the point that I actually like him as a character (shocking, considering upon every reread before this one I have disliked him. He's compassionate, willing to give up his relationship with Alina so she can rule, and doesn't shy away from Alina's thoughts of loving her powers and the darkness within her. I disliked him in Book 2, but he redeemed himself here.
-Nikolai: I absolutely love this character. Nothing more to be said.
-Baghra: She was lacking in Book 2, but completely made up for it in this book. We learn so much more about her past, and I just absolutely love her complex character. She taught the Darkling to harden himself against any weakness (including love), and is at fault for creating the monster that the Darkling is. But in the end, she sacrifices her life so Alina can escape in hopes of Alina bringing down the Darkling.
Villain, The Darkling: 4/5
Trained to be hardened against any weakness, including love, he was raised witnessing the injustice against Grisha like him. He vowed to one day deliver the Grisha and create a safe place for them where they could live as equals. He did everything in his power to do so, only to become a villain at the end. His motivation was love and desire for his own people.
The biggest thing that shifted his arc was when confronting Alina in battle. He let her believe he was so heinous that he would sacrifice Grisha children, when he had in fact kept them far away from battle.
*Then I remembered his words from so long ago: Make me your villain.
“I know what you thought, what you’ve always thought of me. It’s so much easier that way, isn’t it?
To puff yourself up with your own righteousness.”*
Despite motivations, he still was a villain. He used darkness to turn people into his puppets, marched on Alina's old home that surved as a sanctuary for orphans and burned it, taking the orphans hostage and showing Alina the dead bodies of her mentors and mother figure. He did plenty of heinous things.
He was a great villain, but he fell a little short of lacking being an excellent one. I'm not sure what could be fixed, but he just couldn't quite measure up all the way.
------
Overall Enjoyment: 5/5
When I first read this book, I hated the ending and how Mal and Alina ended up together. Now I see I was an idiot.
Loved:
-Alina and the Darkling's conversations
-Alina and Mal's interactions greatly improved
-The expansion of the Darkling's power and what he does to Nikolai. It's so heartbreaking, and I love that scene
-Genya poisoneing her skin so that every time the King touched her, he would unknowingly poison himself
-Hershaw's backstory
-Nikolai's too brief appearances
-Why Baghra would never train David
-That conversation between Mal and Alina before the battle. I begrudgingly like Mal and Alina together in this book. My poor Nikolai, though.
-Just this book. Made me cry too much not to give it a 5 for enjoyment.
------
Notable Quotes:
-I remembered the Darkling’s words to me: There are no others likeus, Alina. And there never will be. Maybe Morozova wanted to believe that if there were no others like
him, there could be, that he might create Grisha of greater power. Or maybe I was just imagining things, seeing my own loneliness and greed in Morozova’s pages. The mess of what I knew and what I wanted, my desire for the firebird, my own sense of difference had all gotten too hard to untangle.
-"Oncat scratches me all the time,” said Harshaw as he ambled up beside me.
“Oh?” I asked hollowly.
“Funny thing is, she likes to stay close.”
“Are you being profound, Harshaw?”
“Actually, I was wondering, if I ate enough of those fish, would I start to glow?”
-“I saw the prince when I was in Os Alta,” said Ekaterina. “He’s not bad looking.”
“Not bad looking?” said another voice. “He’s damnably handsome.”
Luchenko scowled. “Since when—”
“Brave in battle, smart as a whip.” Now the voice seemed to be coming from above us. Luchenko
craned his neck, peering into the trees. “An excellent dancer,” said the voice. “Oh, and an even better shot.”
“Who—” Luchenko never got to finish. A blast rang out, and a tiny black hole appeared between
his eyes.
I gasped. “Imposs—”
“Don’t say it,” muttered Mal.
Then chaos erupted.
-I shrugged, eager to change the subject. “There’s not much to do underground besides train.”
“I can think of a few more interesting ways to spend one’s time.”
“Is that supposed to be innuendo?”
“What a filthy mind you have. I was referring to puzzles and the perusal of edifying texts.”
-“We came to find you. What’s the matter with that boy?”
“He’s had a hard time of it,” I said, leading them away from the tank room.
“Who hasn’t?”
“He saw the girl he loved gutted by your son and held her while she died.”
“Suffering is cheap as clay and twice as common. What matters is what each man makes of it.
-“You were meant to be my balance, Alina. You are the only person in the world who might rule with me, who might keep my power in check.”
“And who will balance me?” The words emerged before I thought better of them, giving raw voice
to a thought that haunted me even more than the possibility that the firebird didn’t exist. “What if I’m no better than you? What if instead of stopping you, I’m just another avalanche?”
-“When the time comes,” Mal asked, “can you bring the firebird down?”
Yes. I was done with hesitation. It wasn’t just that we’d run out of options, or that so much was riding on the firebird’s power. I’d simply grown ruthless enough or selfish enough to take another creature’s life. But I missed the girl who had shown the stag mercy, who had been strong enough to turn away from the lure of power, who had believed in something more. Another casualty of this war.
-His hand slid down my forearm. Gently, he clasped the bare skin of my wrist, letting his fingers touch, testing. When they met, that jolting force moved through both of us, even that brief taste of power nearly unbearable in its force.
My throat constricted—with misery, with confusion, and with shameful, undeniable longing. To want this from him was too much, too cruel. It’s not fair. Stupid words, childish. Senseless.
“We’ll find another way,” I whispered.
Mal’s fingers separated, but he kept my wrist in a loose hold as he drew me closer. I felt as I always had in his arms—complete, like I was home. But now I had to question even that. Was what I felt real or some product of a destiny Morozova had set into motion hundreds of years ago?
Mal brushed the hair from my neck. He pressed a single brief kiss to the skin above the collar.
“No, Alina,” he said softly. “We won’t.”
-Mal and Tolya—maybe all of the others—believed that the amplifiers had to be brought together, but they had never felt the thrill of using merzost. It was something no other Grisha understood, and in the end, it was what bound the Darkling and me most closely—not our powers, not the strangeness of them, not that we were both aberrations, if not abominations. It was our knowledge of the forbidden, our desire for more.
-His hands went to my throat. “No,” he whispered.
-Only then did I realize the collar had fallen away. I looked down. It lay in pieces beside Mal’s body.
-My wrist was bare; the fetter had broken too.
“This isn’t right,” he said, and in his voice I heard desperation, a new and unfamiliar anguish. His fingers skimmed my neck, cupped my face. I felt no surge of surety. No light stirred within me to answer his call. His gray eyes searched mine—confused, nearly frightened. “You were meant to be like me. You were meant … You’re nothing now.”
He dropped his hands. I saw the realization strike him. He was truly alone. And he always would be.
-“Alina,” the Darkling repeated, his fingers seeking mine. I was surprised to find fresh tears filling my eyes.
He reached up and brushed his knuckles over the wetness on my cheek. The smallest smile touched his bloodstained lips. “Someone to mourn me.” He dropped his hand, as if the weight were too much.
“No grave,” he gasped, his hand tightening on mine, “for them to desecrate.”
All right,” I said. The tears came harder. There will be nothing left.
He shuddered. His eyelids drooped.
“Once more,” he said. “Speak my name once more.”
He was ancient, I knew that. But in this moment he was just a boy—brilliant, blessed with too much power, burdened by eternity.
“Aleksander.”
His eyes fluttered shut. “Don’t let me be alone,” he murmured. And then he was gone.
-He’d hung black banners from the windows and the carving of the double eagle above the doors had been replaced with a sun in eclipse. Now workmen were pulling down the black silks and replacing them with Ravkan blue and gold. An awning had been set up to catch plaster as a soldier took a massive hammer to the stone symbol above the door, shattering it to dust. A cheer went up from the crowd. I couldn’t share in their excitement. For all his crimes, the Darkling had loved Ravka, and he’d wanted its love in return.
-Around me, the moans and weeping of the crowd grew louder.
Sankta, they cried. Sankta Alina.
My eyes burned with the smoke. The smell was sickly sweet.
Sankta Alina.
No one knew his name to curse or extol, so I spoke it softly, beneath my breath.
“Aleksander,” I whispered. A boy’s name, given up. Almost forgotten.
-The boy and the girl had both known loss, and their grief did not leave them. Sometimes he would find her standing by a window, fingers playing in the beams of sunlight that streamed through the glass, or sitting on the front steps of the orphanage, staring at the stump of the oak next to the drive.
Then he would go to her, draw her close, and lead her to the shores of Trivka’s pond, where the insects buzzed and the grass grew high and sweet, where old wounds might be forgotten.
She saw sadness in the boy too. Though the woods still welcomed him, he was separate from them now, the bond born into his bones burned away in the same moment that he’d given up his life for her.
But then the hour would pass, and the teachers would catch them giggling in a dim hallway or kissing by the stairs. Besides, most days were too full for mourning. There were classes to teach, meals to prepare, letters to write. When evening fell, the boy would bring the girl a glass of tea, a slice of lemon cake, an apple blossom floating in a blue cup. He would kiss her neck and whisper new names in her ear: beauty, beloved, cherished, my heart.
They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things—if love can ever be called that.
2021 Rating: 5 Stars
Spoiler Free TLDR:
Just fantastic. Take the 5 Stars and be done with it.
Recommended for ages 16+.
---
Christian/Conservative Content Advisory;
Minor Spoilers:
-8 uses of "d*mn"
-5 uses of "a**"
-6 uses of "h**l"
-4 uses of "b*****d' (most used correctly)
-1 use of "w***e"
-f/f relationship
-4 kissing scenes
-1 Intimate Scene
-Disturbing deaths and scenes due to the Darkling
---
Thoughts and MAJOR!!! Spoilers Below:
Plot: 5/5
Quick Summary:
-Alina starts as the Apparat's prisoner
-Alina regains her powers and leaves the Apparat
-Alina and crew get ambushed, then rescued by Nikolai
-Alina an crew make plans and decide to go separate ways, until attacked by Darkling
-Alina and some of the crew go for the Firebird
-Alina learns Mal in the real third Amplifier
-They plan for battle and attack the Darkling in the Fold
-Alina kills Mal in order to achieve the Amplifier's full powers. However, she loses her powers while nearby otkazat’sya received her powers
-Alina mercy kills the Darkling with a knife
-Alina has her friends fake her death, and Mal and her reopen their childhood orphanage.
There's so much more that happens in between the really builds the story. Just take it from me, though, the plot is pretty great.
------
Writing: 5/5
------
World Building: 5/5
Fantastic in building on the lore and truth about Morozova and why everything that has happened has happened.
------
Characters' Rating: 4.5/5
Main Character, Alina: 5/5
Although I loved her arc better in Book 2, she was a great and steady character in this book as well. She was obsessed with overpowering and destroying the Darkling, as well as obtaining the Amplifier. She knew she had strayed from the innocent girl she once knew, but still strived for more power. In fact, even though she knew Mal was the third Amplifier, she still wanted power and went all the way to willingly kill him to unlock the power. When she instead loses that power, she grieves the rest of her life about that loss.
Side Characters: 5/5
I absolutely loved the side characters in this book, not limited to Zoya, Hershaw and Oncat, Misha, David, and Genya. The interactions were fabulous, and I grew to like most of these characters (not that I disliked any). The twins and Nadia were a bit boring, but I have no other complaints besides that.
-Mal: He has came miles in this book, to the point that I actually like him as a character (shocking, considering upon every reread before this one I have disliked him. He's compassionate, willing to give up his relationship with Alina so she can rule, and doesn't shy away from Alina's thoughts of loving her powers and the darkness within her. I disliked him in Book 2, but he redeemed himself here.
-Nikolai: I absolutely love this character. Nothing more to be said.
-Baghra: She was lacking in Book 2, but completely made up for it in this book. We learn so much more about her past, and I just absolutely love her complex character. She taught the Darkling to harden himself against any weakness (including love), and is at fault for creating the monster that the Darkling is. But in the end, she sacrifices her life so Alina can escape in hopes of Alina bringing down the Darkling.
Villain, The Darkling: 4/5
Trained to be hardened against any weakness, including love, he was raised witnessing the injustice against Grisha like him. He vowed to one day deliver the Grisha and create a safe place for them where they could live as equals. He did everything in his power to do so, only to become a villain at the end. His motivation was love and desire for his own people.
The biggest thing that shifted his arc was when confronting Alina in battle. He let her believe he was so heinous that he would sacrifice Grisha children, when he had in fact kept them far away from battle.
*Then I remembered his words from so long ago: Make me your villain.
“I know what you thought, what you’ve always thought of me. It’s so much easier that way, isn’t it?
To puff yourself up with your own righteousness.”*
Despite motivations, he still was a villain. He used darkness to turn people into his puppets, marched on Alina's old home that surved as a sanctuary for orphans and burned it, taking the orphans hostage and showing Alina the dead bodies of her mentors and mother figure. He did plenty of heinous things.
He was a great villain, but he fell a little short of lacking being an excellent one. I'm not sure what could be fixed, but he just couldn't quite measure up all the way.
------
Overall Enjoyment: 5/5
When I first read this book, I hated the ending and how Mal and Alina ended up together. Now I see I was an idiot.
Loved:
-Alina and the Darkling's conversations
-Alina and Mal's interactions greatly improved
-The expansion of the Darkling's power and what he does to Nikolai. It's so heartbreaking, and I love that scene
-Genya poisoneing her skin so that every time the King touched her, he would unknowingly poison himself
-Hershaw's backstory
-Nikolai's too brief appearances
-Why Baghra would never train David
-That conversation between Mal and Alina before the battle. I begrudgingly like Mal and Alina together in this book. My poor Nikolai, though.
-Just this book. Made me cry too much not to give it a 5 for enjoyment.
------
Notable Quotes:
-I remembered the Darkling’s words to me: There are no others likeus, Alina. And there never will be. Maybe Morozova wanted to believe that if there were no others like
him, there could be, that he might create Grisha of greater power. Or maybe I was just imagining things, seeing my own loneliness and greed in Morozova’s pages. The mess of what I knew and what I wanted, my desire for the firebird, my own sense of difference had all gotten too hard to untangle.
-"Oncat scratches me all the time,” said Harshaw as he ambled up beside me.
“Oh?” I asked hollowly.
“Funny thing is, she likes to stay close.”
“Are you being profound, Harshaw?”
“Actually, I was wondering, if I ate enough of those fish, would I start to glow?”
-“I saw the prince when I was in Os Alta,” said Ekaterina. “He’s not bad looking.”
“Not bad looking?” said another voice. “He’s damnably handsome.”
Luchenko scowled. “Since when—”
“Brave in battle, smart as a whip.” Now the voice seemed to be coming from above us. Luchenko
craned his neck, peering into the trees. “An excellent dancer,” said the voice. “Oh, and an even better shot.”
“Who—” Luchenko never got to finish. A blast rang out, and a tiny black hole appeared between
his eyes.
I gasped. “Imposs—”
“Don’t say it,” muttered Mal.
Then chaos erupted.
-I shrugged, eager to change the subject. “There’s not much to do underground besides train.”
“I can think of a few more interesting ways to spend one’s time.”
“Is that supposed to be innuendo?”
“What a filthy mind you have. I was referring to puzzles and the perusal of edifying texts.”
-“We came to find you. What’s the matter with that boy?”
“He’s had a hard time of it,” I said, leading them away from the tank room.
“Who hasn’t?”
“He saw the girl he loved gutted by your son and held her while she died.”
“Suffering is cheap as clay and twice as common. What matters is what each man makes of it.
-“You were meant to be my balance, Alina. You are the only person in the world who might rule with me, who might keep my power in check.”
“And who will balance me?” The words emerged before I thought better of them, giving raw voice
to a thought that haunted me even more than the possibility that the firebird didn’t exist. “What if I’m no better than you? What if instead of stopping you, I’m just another avalanche?”
-“When the time comes,” Mal asked, “can you bring the firebird down?”
Yes. I was done with hesitation. It wasn’t just that we’d run out of options, or that so much was riding on the firebird’s power. I’d simply grown ruthless enough or selfish enough to take another creature’s life. But I missed the girl who had shown the stag mercy, who had been strong enough to turn away from the lure of power, who had believed in something more. Another casualty of this war.
-His hand slid down my forearm. Gently, he clasped the bare skin of my wrist, letting his fingers touch, testing. When they met, that jolting force moved through both of us, even that brief taste of power nearly unbearable in its force.
My throat constricted—with misery, with confusion, and with shameful, undeniable longing. To want this from him was too much, too cruel. It’s not fair. Stupid words, childish. Senseless.
“We’ll find another way,” I whispered.
Mal’s fingers separated, but he kept my wrist in a loose hold as he drew me closer. I felt as I always had in his arms—complete, like I was home. But now I had to question even that. Was what I felt real or some product of a destiny Morozova had set into motion hundreds of years ago?
Mal brushed the hair from my neck. He pressed a single brief kiss to the skin above the collar.
“No, Alina,” he said softly. “We won’t.”
-Mal and Tolya—maybe all of the others—believed that the amplifiers had to be brought together, but they had never felt the thrill of using merzost. It was something no other Grisha understood, and in the end, it was what bound the Darkling and me most closely—not our powers, not the strangeness of them, not that we were both aberrations, if not abominations. It was our knowledge of the forbidden, our desire for more.
-His hands went to my throat. “No,” he whispered.
-Only then did I realize the collar had fallen away. I looked down. It lay in pieces beside Mal’s body.
-My wrist was bare; the fetter had broken too.
“This isn’t right,” he said, and in his voice I heard desperation, a new and unfamiliar anguish. His fingers skimmed my neck, cupped my face. I felt no surge of surety. No light stirred within me to answer his call. His gray eyes searched mine—confused, nearly frightened. “You were meant to be like me. You were meant … You’re nothing now.”
He dropped his hands. I saw the realization strike him. He was truly alone. And he always would be.
-“Alina,” the Darkling repeated, his fingers seeking mine. I was surprised to find fresh tears filling my eyes.
He reached up and brushed his knuckles over the wetness on my cheek. The smallest smile touched his bloodstained lips. “Someone to mourn me.” He dropped his hand, as if the weight were too much.
“No grave,” he gasped, his hand tightening on mine, “for them to desecrate.”
All right,” I said. The tears came harder. There will be nothing left.
He shuddered. His eyelids drooped.
“Once more,” he said. “Speak my name once more.”
He was ancient, I knew that. But in this moment he was just a boy—brilliant, blessed with too much power, burdened by eternity.
“Aleksander.”
His eyes fluttered shut. “Don’t let me be alone,” he murmured. And then he was gone.
-He’d hung black banners from the windows and the carving of the double eagle above the doors had been replaced with a sun in eclipse. Now workmen were pulling down the black silks and replacing them with Ravkan blue and gold. An awning had been set up to catch plaster as a soldier took a massive hammer to the stone symbol above the door, shattering it to dust. A cheer went up from the crowd. I couldn’t share in their excitement. For all his crimes, the Darkling had loved Ravka, and he’d wanted its love in return.
-Around me, the moans and weeping of the crowd grew louder.
Sankta, they cried. Sankta Alina.
My eyes burned with the smoke. The smell was sickly sweet.
Sankta Alina.
No one knew his name to curse or extol, so I spoke it softly, beneath my breath.
“Aleksander,” I whispered. A boy’s name, given up. Almost forgotten.
-The boy and the girl had both known loss, and their grief did not leave them. Sometimes he would find her standing by a window, fingers playing in the beams of sunlight that streamed through the glass, or sitting on the front steps of the orphanage, staring at the stump of the oak next to the drive.
Then he would go to her, draw her close, and lead her to the shores of Trivka’s pond, where the insects buzzed and the grass grew high and sweet, where old wounds might be forgotten.
She saw sadness in the boy too. Though the woods still welcomed him, he was separate from them now, the bond born into his bones burned away in the same moment that he’d given up his life for her.
But then the hour would pass, and the teachers would catch them giggling in a dim hallway or kissing by the stairs. Besides, most days were too full for mourning. There were classes to teach, meals to prepare, letters to write. When evening fell, the boy would bring the girl a glass of tea, a slice of lemon cake, an apple blossom floating in a blue cup. He would kiss her neck and whisper new names in her ear: beauty, beloved, cherished, my heart.
They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things—if love can ever be called that.
Spoiler Alert – given that this is the third book in the series, even the synopsis is a spoiler. If you’re in the wrong place and would like to read reviews of Shadow and Bone or Siege and Storm, please click the links! Reader beware!