A review by lizziepurpleserenity
Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo

3.0

I have mixed feelings about this and I have a lot of thoughts, but I'll try and keep this brief.

ZOYA. This is HER duology. I love her slow development over the two books, how we get to know more about her backstory and what has made her who she is, and the arc she gets in this book. And it feels believable (not forced or contrived) because it's slow and reluctant and there are solid reasons.

Love her garden. And her dragon is SO COOL.

Nikolai. While I was happy to have him back to himself (

from the demon he was in King of Scars

) it generally didn't feel like he had quite enough of the presence that he deserves. I also really struggled with the

romance aspect - I cringed every time he was pining after Zoya either internally or professing his love externally, it was over the top and too angsty. It didn't feel like the way Nikolai would be. I prefer romance to be more subtle and nuanced than that (I loved it in Six of Crows), and I find myself thinking wistfully back to Siege & Storm and the way he was with Alina,

so this spoilt Nikolai for me to an extent, even though

I do ship he and Zoya

. As for where he ended up, I'm not sure how I feel about it

because on the one hand it would make sense for him to stay and rule with Zoya (which I think is what is supposed to be happening?) but on the other hand I really wanted him to go off sailing the seas as Sturmhond, perhaps with Inej! Or maybe he's planning on some of that too? It wasn't very clear...

The plot(s!): This is a very much politically-focused story, with the bulk of the plot threads gearing up for war, and so atmosphere and character (other than for Zoya) were sidelined in favour of political machinations, to its detriment I think, as I don't think all that side of things was executed very well. It all felt a bit too much of a mess, there were too many players, too many contrivances and also a few character decisions that made no sense.

e.g. why on earth did they place the Darkling within reach of Alina and Mal?! Also don't really understand how the Darkling got his power from them given I thought they'd given all the power up...soft magic that we just have to believe I guess.

Speaking of the Darkling, what the hell was he up to? His chapters were dull, and anti-climactic.

lthough I'm glad Zoya's dragon got to upstage him I guess! :D

I was also mostly bored in the Ehri/Mayu/Makhri chapters too.

Nina: I got confused after a while about what she was up to too

they went from being spies for Ravka, to planning for Hanne to marry a Prince for some reason that I missed?!, to Nina giving up her identity for the person she loves, to ultimately one day become a queen of Fjerda. In one way, that's sort of cool, we'd have Queen Zoya and Queen Nina, and the Fjerda problem neatly solved (too neatly?) - but does it have to be "Mila"? I think it would have been so much more satisfying if Nina and Hanne had managed to do something climactic and awesome in Fjerda.

Loved the Crows cameo (the story itself aside), I MISS them and Ketterdam!!! The Six of Crows duology is where it's at, for me.