Review of "Ruin and Rising" by Leigh Bardugo

 

Review of "Ruin and Rising" by Leigh Bardugo

After enjoying the second book, I had hope that the third and final book in the series would be good and turn my view around for the series as a whole. While the first third of the book was a bit slow and boring, the rest of the book was well paced and interesting. Things finally came to a head, we learned more about the history of the amplifier’s creator, Morozova. The new information fills in some questions and illuminates the relationships between Alina, the Darkling, and the Darkling’s mother, Bahgra.

While I haven’t liked the melodramatic relationship between Alina and Mal, we finally gets a resolution to them. When they finally get together, they end up being a cute couple. We also get some resolution for a character that I’ve enjoyed, Genya. She gets some redemption for betraying Alina, and she gets a love interest of her own. We also get the return of a character that I loved from the last book, Nikolai. He gets an interesting character arc in this book, but is still the fun character that I’ve come to enjoy.

One of things I liked about this book is that Alina and her group and traveling and planning their actions against the Darkling. Alina uses the power that the Darkling used in the last book, where she can project herself and talk to him, and gains information that way. It’s a cool use of her power and I like them working as a team.

There’s also an interesting twist that involves Mal, and why he has a connection to Alina and the amplifiers. It’s interesting and reminds me of what they did in the last Harry Potter book. I find the ending resolution to be satisfying and I like the little epilogue that we get with Alina and Mal.

After reading this trilogy, I think the books get better with each installment, but my biggest criticism is that I don’t think this story needed to be stretched out into a trilogy. I do find large portions of these books to be boring, where not much happens. Overall, I think it’s an interesting fantasy world with a fairly generic plot at it’s center. I like the worldbuilding, and I love some of the characters, but can’t say that it’s a series I would return to in the future.

If you like the young adult fantasy genre that deals with the ‘will they/won’t they’ romantic love interest, then you will probably like this series. Author Leigh Bardugo has created a great world with the “Grishaverse” and I look forward to reading another book set in this universe. I want to read “Six of Crows” because those were my favorite characters from the TV show. So, I look forward to reviewing that in the future. That’s it for this review, thank you for reading, be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.

 

My new book now on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Chimera-Prophecies.../dp/B0C4QX4RZW/

"The Chimera Prophecies" consists of eight short science fiction/dark fantasy short stories. Themes of how reality and identity shape our journey and humanity.