Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Ruin and Rising

I can't decide whether to rate this 3 or 4 stars. I definitely enjoyed Siege and Storm more, just because Nikolai was a more present character, but Mal and Alina's relationship was a lot better in this book. I also want to try and be a bit more positive because my other review's were very negative. I don't think this is a bad series, and I can definitely understand why people enjoy it, but I think the generic plot and characters that you find in a lot of YA trilogies was what annoyed me. The plot never really seems very cohesive or like it knows where it is trying to go, and the books all felt quite repetitive in terms of plot. The world building over the trilogy has been pretty decent, however most of the characters time is spent in castle's and palace's or some random forest, so I don't think it is as well explored as it could be. I think the Russian influences are very captivating and quite unique in YA but I have heard that they weren't done very accurately. Now more specifically in this book, I think the character work was somewhat better for a main characters. Mal and Alina seemed more believable because they weren't constantly bickering. Bardugo is talented at creating characters, but I only really felt this with the Darkling and Nikolai. With the help of the Darkling's backstory, he becomes even more complex, as readers can almost sympathise with the poor, scared little boy that just wanted a friend that could relate to him. However the horrific things he does I don't think are redeemable, and I definitely don't agree with the Darklina ship. The side characters were also kind of irrelevant and some of the new ones just felt like they were thrown in just so Bardugo didn't have to kill off her main cast. I frankly didn't care if any of the side characters died. I will move onto spoilers now, and these will be some pretty big spoilers, I mean it.

The Darkling's death. It was sad and I think it almost felt too easy, but I also thought it was kind of cool that he died in a very common way, stabbed with a dagger, rather than in some sort of light vs. dark spectacle. It reduced him back down to just another person. Mal's death was kind of pointless and irrelevant, and I wish that Bardugo would just have been brave enough to keep him dead. It just cheapens his 'death' because it doesn't really mean anything. I wasn't particularly sad that Alina lost her powers, however it annoyed me that this was the only way she could be with Mal, because he ultimately got what he wanted. It felt like her character development to that point was a waste, because she just returned to the same person she was at the start. Absolutely dependant on Mal. Nikolai's absence in this book annoyed me, because he is the only character I actually liked. I think I would have preferred and ending where Mal really died and Alina ended up with him. Also the scene with Genya, where Nikolai threatens to convict the King of rape was heart-breaking. It was probably the best scene of the book in my opinion, although I do kind of wish Nikolai had just killed the King there and then instead of showing him mercy, and exiling him to safety from the Darkling. I really hope we don't see the Darkling resurrected in a future book because I will be seriously p*ssed off.

I also skim read the Darkling prequal story at the back of my copy, it was written fine, but it was kind of pointless in my opinion. Overall I think this story was okay, it just didn't really fully deliver in my opinion. My biggest gripes, as you well know, was some of the characters, the toxic relationships, plot armour / conveniences and bland side characters. I think Alina could have been so much more badass than she was. However, Bardugo's writing style was very manageable and digestable, which made the scenes very fast paced. I don't regret reading it and I would recommend it to teens that may be relatively new to reading.

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erovelo's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny sad 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

3.75

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auroraluvs2read's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

5.0

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annaelisa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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blume13's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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laurajeangrace's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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baknata's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

4.0

Reading this book had me so stressed out, I always felt like something bad was going to happen. The thing is so many bad things kept happening. (Major spoilers ahead, beware) This book wrapped up the story fairly well and I felt like it wrapped up all the loose ends. I was disappointed with the ending though. Firstly, I was never a fan of Mal, which I'll expand on later, but I felt like his sacrifice was cheapened by the fact that he came back from the dead. Like I was on board with him dying, even though that scene had me bawling. I think it would've been a good ending to his story and fit the established character. I also think it would have juxtaposed the usual trope of women being sacrificed for their male love interest well. Instead, Mal basically came out of it without much sacrifice (save for his tracking skills but he still was good enough so hardly a loss) and Alina lost all her power. I know Leigh probably didn't intend for it to be this way, but for me it just felt like the only reason Alina lost her power was so she could end up with Mal. Not to mention, for me it felt like it negated all her development and her growth as a Grisha to just be like "okay your normal now". I would've liked to see her find a place as a Grisha without having to save the world. Even if she did end up running the orphanage w Mal, her still having her powers would've been nice because then we would know it was her choice to do that instead of her just finding something she could do without her power. Other than Alina and Mal's endings, I liked the way the characters' arcs were completed. I liked Genya getting a leadership position, especially with David. I really ended up liking Zoya. The way her character developed in this book was really cool. I felt bad for Nikolai since he didn't really have a happy ending, but I imagine it got better from where the book ended. I didn't like how Harshaw ended up dead and it was brought up so nonchalantly. We didn't know about it until later and it took me so off guard. Most of the other deaths were at least talked about, and I liked Harshaw so it was shocking to hear of his death just thrown in the middle of a sentence.
Overall, this was a fantastic series and I look forward to delving into the rest of the Grishaverse. It'll take me some time to recover from the end of this book, but ignoring the pain it was highly enjoyable!

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