Siege and Storm

So I'm reading through this series for the second time and honestly, I think I was totally right about my first time rating.

Alina and Mal ran away in book 1, but everyone knew the Darkling wasn't so easy to lose. He had plans with Alina, just like the Apparat with his new cult, prince Nikolai and really, everyone now.

The selling point of this series is the super creative world building. The whole Russian aesthetic is great, the things make sense. The danger feels real, there are so many pieces of lore, of different little parts that are interesting. This is exactly why I am so disappointed in the focus being Alina, the least intriguing character in the whole thing. They literally have the equivalent of the tough foreign PE teacher who would probably have a badass story of his own to tell. We are stuck with this bitter, whiny, boring, judge-y piece of a Mary Sue.
By this point she has 3 serious suitors. THREE. (Every single one too good for such a person.) I will be honest, the male characters are waster on this bullshit of chasing Alina. Mal is the most fleshed out, though he is the simplest of the three. It's weird that Bardugo could create interesting people like Nikolai, ideas like the Grisha school and army, but we get stuck with love overload. (Let me also declare that I found Six of Crows aaaaaaabsolutely shitty. No creativity, just bullshit 17-year-old super gang leaders and conveniently pairing up EVERY character into a forced romance, while ignoring any interesting world building.)

The first person perspective was a bad choice as well. It just hides so much about the setting and the other characters because Alina is clueless and boring. The first and last chapters in every book are third person, which would have opened up the story so much more. Not sure how much of it was an active choice or just a bit of a beginner way of not really knowing how to do it. But really, everything that obscures the culture and country here just bothers me, because really, it shines there.

Now I will be controversial, because why not. I do not love YA at all. Often times it's kind of diet stuff, the lesser kind of whatever genre it is and people just seem to let it slide because it's easy to read and it's for young people, so it doesn't matter as long as they read. Which is bullshit. Surprise, surprise, kids do deserve top notch shit as well and good habits can be formed without compromises of quality.
This would have been the PERFECT thing if not for the stupid tropes of all-dudes-loving-one-girl and such. I would still say it's way above the likes of Throne of Glass by Maas or City of Bones by Clare, so in that sense it's definitely recommended by me.

All in all, I'm conflicted, especially knowing Bardugo didn't improve on the weak parts but completely left out the good parts in her newer series. Sad. Especially because I'm re-reading this mostly to prepare for the new Nikolai duology. I want to see interesting things. Adventures. A protagonist who is grey in some ways and has his issues and such, but I fear the most wasted character of this whole series is going to become the centrepiece of another stupid romance and superficial shit. From the outside he looked interesting, I wonder how he will be if we get to know him better.

At this point the three books follow the route of the characters going after Morozova's three animal amplifiers, which is not a bad basic plot. For the most bare bones approach it's already enough, though I find the Apparat story line is very interesting, even if he is not a very fascinating character, while Nikolai's character is great (you really can't guess if he is a total charming sociopath or if he is really suffering under the weight of what he is doing) his story here is... mostly just “we have to pretend to be awesome so people will buy it”. Again, conflicting as hell.

I'm going to read the last book of course, even though I know what's happening. The vibrant details make it worth my time, especially because they are extremely readable, very fast and easy. Worth a try, I think.

Good night and see the light at the end of the tunnel!