King of Scars

“You are strong enough to survive the fall”― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

rating- 4.5/5

//This review contains A LOT of spoilers for the grisha trilogy and king of scars. Do not read this if you haven't read the books.\

buddy read with shreya:)


okay but this book was so hard for me to rate. I absolutely love the characters (cough cough nikolai cough cough) and i loved it? but there's also a few major things i didn't like:(

i'm going to start with what i disliked, so i can get that out of the way:

Undermines the Grisha Trilogy:
what upset me was how [b:King of Scars|36307634|King of Scars (King of Scars, #1)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1525110825l/36307634.SY75.jpg|57978319] takes everything you've learnt about the grishaverse so far and throws that out of the window.
a grisha's power isn't limited within the orders? between the orders? they have been using amplifiers wrong this whole time?!! (the entire original trilogy focuses on the search of the three amplifiers. please-)

i don't know if it's just me but the whole “we are all just things” ideology seemed very abstract to me. scientifically, it does make sense you know, because all elements are ultimately made of atoms. But but, that would mean all grisha could manipulate everything? there would be no limits to their powers? this is just all over the place-

somebody tell me why [a:Leigh Bardugo|4575289|Leigh Bardugo|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1534446099p2/4575289.jpg] was so determined to change everything??? I ABSOLUTELY loved the original grisha trilogy (maybe even slightly more than [b:Six of Crows|23437156|Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1628438817l/23437156.SX50.jpg|42077459]. yes we exist.) I agree she wrote it a while ago and might want to change the way she's done a few things. But changing the entire grisha magic system? and it all happened so fast agghd.
[ i find it hard to cope with change, leave me alone :( ]

note: i know this is set up a little bit in the shadow and bone trilogy as well, through morozova's journals but he's continuously passed off as a man consumed by too much power. And i just liked how organised the grisha system is okay? angry huff.

The Darkling:And i don't know how to feel about the darkling being back:/. I absolutely loved the way things ended in [b:Ruin and Rising|14061957|Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1392398530l/14061957._SX50_.jpg|19699754] (well atleast for the darkling *sigh*)“In this moment he was just a boy -brilliant, blessed with too much power, burdened by eternity."And it just felt right. everything. where alina kills him with a tiny tendril of his own power, when they were both burnt. It was this profound moment where somebody who was essentially thought to be immortal and who had immense power was defeated by this young self deprecating orphan from keramzin. His character arc was closed in [b:Ruin and Rising|14061957|Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1392398530l/14061957._SX50_.jpg|19699754] really well, and his resurrection feels contrived to me idk.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. i don't like how this book undermines the original trilogy when it's one of my favourites:/

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THE LAST FEW CHAPTERS
I was considering rating the book about 3.5 stars, and then i read the last few chapters. And they completely blew my mind. Kind of like [b:Ruin and Rising|14061957|Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1392398530l/14061957.SX50.jpg|19699754] tbh, The author has a thing for crazy endings i guess.
The plot twists were unpredictable and weren't something i expected.
What's with Brum appearing out of nowhere in the grishaverse haha. i feel like all his appearances are like that.

BUT what fascinated me most was the Ehri-Isaak-Mayu thing. i've read some reviews and none of them mentioned this. like- I DID NOT EXPECT THAT? THEY WERE BOTH GUARDS PRETENDING TO BE ROYALS?!!! why is that so cool.
Okay but killing the ravkan king & their fake princess and framing Fjerda for it? The Shu are so smart please. I feel like we always forget that, and paint fjerdans as the real villains. Parem, Kherguud. ALL shu. (shurewd shu. why am i like this?)

Nikolai and Zoya
NIKOLAI is another reason this book is up there. He's literally so incredible please. i loved the charming, confident, sarcastic nikolai that we see from alina's pov and i love self-doubting, using-his-charm-and-humour-as-a-defense-because-he's-not-as-confident-as-he-seems-nikolai that we see from his own pov. (To all the reviews i read, that said “he's not the nikolai i fell in love with” pLEasE. you guys can't handle a character that's self deprecating, like not everybody has high self-esteem??? and it just makes him seem so much more realistic in my opinion.)

“He was a king who had only begun to make mistakes. He was a soldier for whom the war would never be over. He was a bastard left alone in the woods. And he was not afraid to die this day.”

Soldiers did not cry. Princes did not weep. Nikolai knew this. But the tears fell anyway. “Dominik the brave. Hold on a little longer.”Dominik squeezed his hand. “This country gets you in the end, brother. Don't forget it.”

ZOYA

“In that moment, he wished things might have been different. That he might not die tomorrow. That he could be led by his heart instead of duty. Because Zoya was not kind and she was not easy. But she was already a queen.”

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