My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 Stars
Quotes to Remember:
“Na razrusha'ya. I am not ruined. E'ya razrushost. I am ruination.”
“Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what's inside you? That's steel. It's brave and unbreakable. And it doesn't need fixing.”
“They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things-if love can ever be called that.”
“Maybe love was superstition, a prayer we said to keep the truth of loneliness at bay.”
“Yuyeh sesh. Despise your heart. Ni weh sesh. I have no heart.”
“Suffering is cheap as clay and twice as common. What matters is what each man makes of it.”
"He did not see the moment the girl ceased to bear her weakness as a burden and began to wear it as a guise."
"In the end, maybe love just meant longing for something impossibly bright and forever out of reach."
My Review:
So, if you read any of my previous reviews you will know that I didn't like Mal. Like, at all. Gonna just put it out there that I still don't like him. I don't hate him as much as I did. With new developments in this book the relationship between Mal and Alina was just a bit too much.
Nikolai, however, is an amazing character and I absolutely can not wait to read King of Scars so that I can see more of his amazing personality. Nikolai really went through a lot in this book and I loved getting to watch his character handle all of the challenges thrown at him.
As for the actual book, I took issues with some of it. Mainly with Mal, but I also didn't like Alina in parts of the book. She was making skeptical decisions and she blew off Baghra in a moment that would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. There was also a lot about the third amplifier that I didn't like.
I will also say that I am not a fan of the martyr storyline. We've been set up for the entire series to see someone become a martyr in this book and I just find something so unsatisfying about that. Maybe it is because you get attached to characters only to see them sacrifice themselves for the greater good, but maybe it's because it just seems so unnecessary in most situations. It also just took a weird turn in this book.
Overall, I enjoyed certain parts of the book but I didn't like it as much as the other books and I would have liked to see some different choices being made, but I am not an author and I never will be so that isn't my decision to make.
Publisher's Description:
The capital has fallen.
The Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne.
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.
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