Ruin & Rising
Leigh Bardugo || Publication Date - 17.06.2014

Battle worn and almost out of hope. The fate of the world rests on the shoulders of their new Saint.

Fiction | Fantasy | Adventure | Young Adult

After their last fight with The Dark One, Alina is now recovering trying to build her strength and fight to find the last of the Amplifiers she requires to beat him.

Her journey to find the Fire Bird is based on a myth, not even guaranteed to find this illustrious creature. However, though the odds are not in her favour, she and a band of her closest allies are on the hunt for their last chance at winning this war.

But like any power, great sacrifice must be made, and Alina is constantly weighing her choices to truly find if she is ready to find out what is on the line.

The Review (may contain spoilers)

I found this last instalment mediocre at best. Apologies for the harsh wording, but the premise and storyline up until this final book was fun and interesting. I had this overarching feeling through the whole series that Alina and Mal's relationship was written purposely for convenience and this final book proved my concerns.

The characters as people never improved and the ones I initially liked upon meeting stayed my favourites. Alina and Mal are quite honestly two of the most uninteresting people on the planet and faltered the story in my opinion. I can appreciate if this was intentional as some people don't like reading about already extraordinary characters gaining Chosen One powers and saving the world. That being said, making them painstakingly dull is also not a win.

My favourite characters do appear in later books within the Grishaverse, and I will definitely be delving into the other duology's by Leigh Bardugo in the future. Her writing style is nice and she explains things in her world very well. Magic systems can get convoluted and I appreciate hers being creative and easily grasped by readers. Ultimately, I feel the ending closed off the saga quite well and I didn't have many unanswered questions or unsavory explanations.

Overall Thoughts

This trilogy was a good way to introduce the politics, systems, characters and overarching world building required for a multi-novel series. I do however, think this is best seen through the eyes of a prologue to give context to the other books set in the Grishaverse. I have not read the Six of Crows duology so I'm unsure how those books go in terms of explaining intricate details of Ravka, however if they function perfectly well as standalone books (which I will be able to advise and update this passage later) then I would simply recommend to skip this trilogy and read those instead.

That being said, if you are a fantasy fan and want something easy to read and a fascinating world with interesting side characters then this would be a nice and quick series to grab.