Reviews tagging 'Rape'

King of Scars - Trono de ouro e cinzas by Leigh Bardugo

19 reviews

bookishfads's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Spoiler Free Section

"Disappointing"
Best word to describe this book. It hurts me to say that as a fan who really looked forward to reading it. Leigh Bardugo threw way too many ideas into the blender, making all their flavours fight each other and none of them won, except for the salt, since this review will likely be full of it.
Book is divided into two plots (a third one appeared halfway through) which remain separated trough the entire book. This makes quite a frustrating reading experience, since it feels as if you're reading two books that keep constantly interrupting each other. Both plots had their merits and flaws, but the worst part is how mismatched their tones were. Questionable and downright lazy choices were made.
The time I enjoyed this book the most was before I read it, when my mind was buzzing with all the things that could happen.
Which begs the question...

Do I recommend this?
As a reviewer and reader, absolutely not, not unless you want the sheer frustration of seeing great potential wasted to inspire you to do better with your own writing. However, as a Grishaverse fan, I know how it feels to want that last kick, the curiosity and hype of wanting to see more of your favourite characters. There are some pretty solid scenes, backstories revealed and fun banter that carried the entire book for me. More world building, some good, some bad.
Ultimately, it's up to you to decide if you want more of GV, I'm just warning you that it's likely going to be a disappointing journey (especially for the Nikolai fangirls) and to not get your hopes up. In fact, I'm fairly certain this is a sign of LB's burnout with this world and that she's practically done with it.
This book reads like a draft of all the things she thought might happen in a new series. An unedited draft.
Everything was so surface level, like a cheap sequel written just for the sake of being written. Still, it's a sequel to something loved, which is exactly why people will buy it regardless of what they hear. Sad but true.

The core issue is the division of the fandom and how Leigh tried to make everyone happy. But the two stories were vastly different. TGT was an epic fantasy, full of cliches, but charming in it's own way. SOC duology went the more dark, morally gray, edgy route. Stakes were lower but more personal, without grand destinies and heroes fighting the darkness. Nikolai seemed like the best compromise, shrewd enough to give SOC fans more sneaky escapades and yet heroic enough to continue in Alinas footsteps. But do we tell his story in a more SOC or TGT way? Uniting them was impossible, so one tone would have to overwrite another. But which one? Maybe keep them separate? Not like this...

Spoiler Section

The Nina Plot
We interrupt your YA fantasy to bring you... Schindlers List of Handmaiden's Tale. No but seriously, the plot with the pregnant Grisha women slaves gives me mixed feelings. On one hand, it's s very realistic and tragic course for this world to take, but on another... Talking about dark topics in YA often mixes poorly with the rest of the storytelling, making the dark and very serious topic look... edgy.

Ninas story was pretty good, solid ideas and all, so why, why, why mix it with Nikolais fantasy quest of fighting dragons and believing in himself? By magnitude, these two plots have completely different stakes, but I just can't take Nikolais story as seriously considering the devastating real world similarities of the Nina story. Even though Nikolai is saving the entire world! It's like playing Pokemon theme song and Schindlers List theme together. Doesn't work.
But it was devastating to read nonetheless. Female rage is strong with LBs writing and I respect that. It just feels disingenuous to put your female rage in a half-assed plot that doesn't get the attention and time it deserves.

Adrik and Leoni didn't matter much as characters, they were mostly there as plot conveniences. Their romance was... cute, but simply unnecessary for such undeveloped characters. They had a pretty good foundation, just not enough page time.

Hanne has the fandom divided. Personally, I don't mind her romance with Nina. Nina is the type of character to move on and LB is quite the feminist writer who doesn't want her female characters defined by their romance arcs. But why did the romance have to begin the very night she buried Matthias? The boy she grieved for two months, the boy she loved enough to desert Ravka for - yea thats cool, but Hanne's hair is so pretty! Overall, their interactions were nice, but didn't have the spark for me. Maybe i'm not gay enough to understand, but that doesn't make Hannes reaction to being utterly betrayed any more natural. She's like 'OK i'll betray my dad for you!' Brum may not be some quality dad material, but it would make more sense to have more anger and frustration from Hanne. Confusion. Disbelief. Overall, Hanne as a character is pretty interesting, especially the detail that she's Brum's daughter. Lots of potential. She's probably the part of this book with most effort behind it.
Ninas plot is the one with way tighter writing, but that's not much of a compliment considering the rest of this book.
In case you hadn't been sold on the separate book idea, just imagine: when Nina is on her last legs, unable to free all those women... she gathers the best crew for the job. The Crows. Inej doing what she set out to do, Kaz showing his humanity once again, Jesper and Wylan yearning for action...
CONCLUSION: Ninas story belongs in a separate book where things would have time to develop.

The Nikolai Plot
A.k.a. the book you should be reading, but instead it's more Zoya/Zoyalai focused. I guess Leigh just hates writing men, or every book needs to have a feminist character finding her power or it's just her publishers demanding a - try not to gag - a strong female character. Whatever the reason, focusing on Zoya may not be the best move in a so-called "Nikolai duology", you know, with a title such as "The King of Scars", the nickname of a particular character that happens to be... not Zoya.
So let's start with Zoya, the protagonist. The Chosen One of Ravka (well, the second Chosen One in the last ten years). Either I've forgotten quite a bit of the original trilogy or she was way less... misanthropic. Even after the aunt death reveal. Okay, so war made her more bitter and angry, or it's a slight retcon, that's totally fine. But it's hard to set her apart from other rough-tough characters. She needed more emotions besides anger and denial. She's basically a young selfless Baghra.
Let's say even that's fine, since we don't know Zoya that well - but how can anyone just accept the ridiculous power upgrade?! Zoya gained saint-like powers in a matter of... THREE WEEKS?? "Oh but time works diff-" shut the fuck up. Alina did not go trough the entire Grisha Trilogy, got traumatised for life and almost lost Mal just to be replaced with Zoya like that. We don't need another Alina, give us Zoya and give us her story, with new stakes, it doesn't matter if they're "lower". Zoya has way more potential than Alina, so many points to explore: woman in power, grisha, Suli, trafficking survivor, former follower of the Darkling, grieving child etc. Are you seriously telling me that "she gets cooler powers" WAS ALL YOU COULD COME UP WITH LEIGH??
Can we stop Marvel-ing everything, please, the world doesn't need to be in danger for us to care about the characters. Also, now whatever conflict comes after saving the world from these overpowered saints will just feel like a letdown - so why not just start with that conflict and cut the Goku arc?

Nikolai was pushed to the side in this book, which is an odd choice, again, considering how the story is presented. He was a side character in TGT, true, and as the sassy comic relief, it surely would be much harder to write his POV, ruin part of his mystery. But you can still use Zoyas POV for those ambiguous moments. Why avoid giving him more depth? Nikolai had a great foundation as a character: Prince Charming who also dabs into engineering and piracy (Nikolai: privateering), but who is also not actually a legitimate prince, who deals with a lot of emotional wounds and loneliness. Add to that the whole demon thing and you have great setup for a lot of angst and breaking until (hopefully) you get to healing and acceptance. Of course, romance too.

it baffles me to put him on the side for the sake of half-developed Zoya.

And all the weird Saints stuff, not only ruins a lot of atmosphere and world building, it also kinda... doesn't make much sense? Perhaps it could, if expanded upon, make a pretty good story, with Alina or the Darkling preferably. Zoya and Nikolai are so out of place with all that.

Leigh Bardugo in general struggles to write characters with actual flaws, with actual consequences for their actions. A lot of times, either a magic solution will appear, or there will be no repercussions at all! That's what happened to Zoyalai.
CONCLUSION: We don't need a new Alina and we certainly don't need the old Darkling. Just give us what's on the cover.
The Isaak Plot
Ah, poor sweet little cinnamon roll... Technically still part of the Zoyalai plot, especially since they tie together in the end, but still quite separate from it.
The ideas in this part were so creative and fun, the suspenseful comedy of having Isaak be a clumsy stand in for his charming king while developing feelings for an enemy princess who's just out to kill him. I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers plots and add to that the confusion and pain of the identity switch, the betrayal, it was a really promising plot. One that I would have loved to see more of, and one that could've been the other half of this book instead of the Nina plot. Hopefully with Isaak surviving, he was just too sweet to die.
I loved the theme of kebben with two guards pretending to be royals catching feelings. Imagine if it were longer with a proper buildup...
CONCLUSION: Isaak is fine, but we don't know him. Replace Nina plot with Isaak plot, you'll fix them both.

So to summarise, we had great potential for:
-A series around Nikolai and Zoya, full of politics, intrigue and forbidden love
-Maybe a book/story on pre-TGT Nikolai and his shenanigans
-A book around Nina (and maybe the Crows), full of grief, trauma and healing
-A book/series around the Darkling and the Saints, full of lore, immortality and fight for power
-The Six of Crows sequel everyone is cawing for
And it all got squandered for... this. You do the math on how much we've been robbed.

Content Warnings

nerdy_reader_9571's review against another edition

4.25

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

Content Warnings

jess_always_reading's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I absolutely loved the Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom duology, it was beautifully crafted. I was very excited to dive back into the Grishaverse again but King of Scars just wasn't it for me. It felt like a hard left from the previous series, the pacing was tough, and the Nikolai & Zoya chapters (2/3 of the book) just weren't engaging enough to make me want to see where things would go. I'm also generally not a fan of

dead villains/resolved challenges coming back, it feels uninspired and repetitive

.

That being said, I really loved most aspects of Nina's storyline. It felt true to character, the pacing was good, and I loved the story.

#ReadThisForNinaZenik

Content Warnings

oceana_bookworm's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I think this book fits into the Grishaverse pretty well and it was super fun to read. It took a lot longer to get into than most of the other books but was still really good! Overall I’m so excited to read Rule of Wolves!

Content Warnings

alyssadavis's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

“Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow. You are strong enough to survive the fall.”

Content Warnings

aliyachaudhry's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional funny 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: Yes

Content Warnings

sea_sea's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional funny 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: Yes

OH MY GOODNESS!!! The story continues!!! This book is a little hard to get into in the beginning, but it is amazing to finally see Zoya and Nikolais perspectives! Also how Nina’s life continues after Matthias ;-; It definitely picks up towards the end! It was a little confusing that Ninas and Nikolai+ Zoyas Plots were handled simultaneously in the book, because they had almost nothing to do with each other. Overall a good book! :>

Content Warnings

onefineelephant's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

9/10. I loved this book. I don't think I liked it more than the Six of Crows books, but that's because I'm a sucker for found family. I love Nikolai, Zoya, Nina, and Hanne. The only part that I didn't like was that it felt like I was reading two separate books - one about Nikolai and Zoya and another about Nina and Hanne. It didn't feel like the two connected or overlapped very much, so when I would read a chapter from one of their POVs, then I wanted to keep reading that story rather than switching to a completely different story (that I also liked and then the cycle would continue). I'm guessing the two stories will converge in the next book, but I think this book felt off because of the unrelated stories. Love the Grishaverse, though. This series continues to surprise me.

Content Warnings

prettynerdy3's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark 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

Content Warnings

merisavale's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous emotional mysterious 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: No

Great book. I didn’t love the Shadow and Bone trilogy but I feel like this is back up there with 6 of crows. An easy read with lots of emotions and twists!

Content Warnings

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