A review by leona
Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous emotional funny hopeful tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings