Review: Ruin and Rising
Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
Now the nation's fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army.
Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives.
Alina will have to forge new alliances and put aside old rivalries as she and Mal race to find the last of Morozova's amplifiers. But as she begins to unravel the Darkling's secrets, she reveals a past that will forever alter her understanding of the bond they share and the power she wields. The firebird is the one thing that stands between Ravka and destruction—and claiming it could cost Alina the very future she’s fighting for.
Okay. This book explores a lot - the first part was pretty slow, but I think that's okay - lots of world-building.
This book, I think, could've been better, what with all the room for character exploring with the Darkling, and Mal could've been, you know, hotter. As a final book, I can't really criticize it. It wasn't spectacular, but it was definitely GOOD. The world building was fantastic, and NIKOLAI.NIKOLAI. I literally bookmarked like 30 pages of just fabulous Nikolai quotes. Did I mention NIKOLAI??!!! Of course, in Siege and Storm, there were more moments, but, still....NIKOLAI.
After all the gushing, something I didn't really get was the whole Darkling thing. After the confrontation at the end of S&S, since Alina got a little of his power, she could see him? And speak with him amiably? In R&R, the Darkling and Alina pretty much talked as equals. The Darkling is evil. He's trying to confuse her and worm his way into her heart. Well, Leigh, it's working on the reader, too! Did he secretly have a good heart? Was the mad, power-hungry Darkling really a softie, as shown by the declarations of intimacy [Show] Well, we will never know, because Leigh never elaborated on his character that much. She showed us like 1% of his soft side, then didn't clear anything up? Like, that makes me mad?
Anyway, this whole build-up throughout the entire series has led to.....what? The Darkling dying? We get it. That was going to happen, unless she pulled a Divergent series, which even in that case, the villain dies. Like Jesse @ JesseTheReader said, there really wasn't a plot.
BUT - in the end, I still really liked this book. My heart is soft, and Leigh is a spectacular writer, and NIKOLAI.
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