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A review by lizziepurpleserenity
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
4.0
2nd read, 4th April 2021
My feelings haven't changed much from what I said below on first read. But, I will say that this time around I did indeed read Nina's chapters all together first, and then the rest together, and the book worked much better that way in terms of pacing, there were no irritating interruptions to each story, given both were completely unconnected to each other. Nina's story really could and maybe should have been a novella, I really enjoyed her chapters read that way. As for the rest, I feel the same way I did below.
1st read, Feb 2019
This didn't quite live up to the hype, mainly because Nikolai doesn't sparkle quite the way he does in the Shadow & Bone trilogy. I actually don't think it helped that we have his POV in this one - for me personally, he comes to life much more from an outsider's POV. The ending did leave me hungry for book 2, though, I'm hoping we'll have more of the Nikolai I love in that one. Both Zoya and Nina grew on me (I was indifferent about them before, especially Zoya).
The pace is fairly slow for the first half of the book, but speeds up in the second half and I did get to a point where i couldn't put the book down and there were a couple of twists that for some reason I didn't foresee though they're actually pretty obvious in retrospect! I really enjoyed Nina's story, although it is so far disconnected with everything else that's going on (perhaps could have had her own book, would be interesting - and possible - to read her chapters alone, all in one go!). However I'm not sure I am on board with the happenings at the Shadow Fold, that was all too much/too fantastical for my taste, and I'm not entirely sure the outcome works - it is a bit confusing. I did love Juris though, and the outcome for Zoya with regards to that.
My feelings haven't changed much from what I said below on first read. But, I will say that this time around I did indeed read Nina's chapters all together first, and then the rest together, and the book worked much better that way in terms of pacing, there were no irritating interruptions to each story, given both were completely unconnected to each other. Nina's story really could and maybe should have been a novella, I really enjoyed her chapters read that way. As for the rest, I feel the same way I did below.
1st read, Feb 2019
This didn't quite live up to the hype, mainly because Nikolai doesn't sparkle quite the way he does in the Shadow & Bone trilogy. I actually don't think it helped that we have his POV in this one - for me personally, he comes to life much more from an outsider's POV. The ending did leave me hungry for book 2, though, I'm hoping we'll have more of the Nikolai I love in that one. Both Zoya and Nina grew on me (I was indifferent about them before, especially Zoya).
The pace is fairly slow for the first half of the book, but speeds up in the second half and I did get to a point where i couldn't put the book down and there were a couple of twists that for some reason I didn't foresee though they're actually pretty obvious in retrospect! I really enjoyed Nina's story, although it is so far disconnected with everything else that's going on (perhaps could have had her own book, would be interesting - and possible - to read her chapters alone, all in one go!). However I'm not sure I am on board with the happenings at the Shadow Fold, that was all too much/too fantastical for my taste, and I'm not entirely sure the outcome works - it is a bit confusing. I did love Juris though, and the outcome for Zoya with regards to that.