Ruin and Rising ~ Leigh Bardugo (Grisha Verse #3)

★★★☆☆

I am ruination.

The Writing and Worldbuilding

I enjoyed the unexpected subversions of most of the expected YA tropes, but the very ending kind of pissed me off.[Mostly because literally the only death that affected me and legitimately made me cry was the Darkling's. I actually kind of wanted Mal to die, not because I didn't like his character, but because I was mostly indifferent towards him. I was literally pissed off that he didn't stay dead because it didn't come across as a miracle, it came across as plot armor. Let the dead stay dead and get over it. Playing with life and death is literally what started this whole mess in the first place. (hide spoiler)]

The plot was a little all over the place, and was, basically just them moving from place to place, getting a little demoralized, then having camp comradery, and then moving again. It became such a trend, I expected their plans to fail. They really only won because it's the last book in the trilogy and they had to at this point. And the themes felt a little forced tbh.

The jokes were pretty good though, as usual.

I really liked how the dark magic stuff was actually sort of explained finally. Not really how it's done in the first place, but its place in the plot was explained, and I found it interesting.

The Characters

Alina: Yeah, she was okay. I liked her enough, and I understood most of her feelings and stuff. She didn't really grow though, unless you count learning new skills and constantly traveling as a character arc.

Mal: I don't hate Mal, but I don't really care, ya get me? He's mostly the comic relief, so when he's trying to be all dramatic, it just kind of comes across as plot convenience.

The Darkling: Is it bad that literally the only character I cared about was the villain? He's been my favorite character, and really the only character I actually really care about other than Nikolai, from the start and remained that way.

Nikolai: He didn't feature as much as I'd have liked. I still really like him though and I'm excited for King of Scars!

The squad: I'm just grouping the whole camping buddy group together. They were okay. I liked them. But again, nothing new happened with their characters except for people actually liking Zoya.

Conclusion

I liked it, but really didn't care most of the time, which, for a final book, isn't exactly what should happen. All in all, she had her chance, but none of the Grisha trilogy books made my favorites list, though I really did enjoy the world.

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