okay reading this kicked off my reading of one book every single day for the next like I think 5 days. I read every single book in this series and then the king of scars duology which is a spin-off series! so even though I didn't think this was the best series ever written, I did get really hooked and I'm not going to lie, it is because of nikolai. I love this man, he's white boy of the month. I love him and he kept me reading😭😭 so sorry I obsessed😭😭 I had always heard that this series was inferior to six of crows (which I do agree with) but I think it's a hard comparison because six of crows is just THAT good. six of crows is that girl so this series never stood a chance. but I still think this series was really great and I think because I had lower expectations of it I ended up enjoying it more! in my previous review for the first book, I mentioned that I think I enjoyed this because I had seen the show and I kind of knew what would happen. but this book really goes so much more in depth (which doesn't surprise me because the show like season 2 of the show like tried to fit three books into eight episodes which was insane) so I think I had so much fun with this because I was just expecting the show and I just got so much more than I expected! I think my favourite part of this series as a whole (that you get a lot of it in this book) is the whole Alina as a saint and the religious aspect of the story, particularly the relationship between the church, the crown and the people. Very obviously inspired by dune and I love it! even though it is a chosen one story with a love triangle which is pretty like stock standard for fantasy, especially for when this came out, the way the characters navigated the religious/sainthood aspects of the story made it stand out, if anyone has any recommendations similar to this I would love to read them! While this book did slog at times (definitely some second book syndrome) I just love this world so much and I love SOME of these characters (mal and alina are still boring). some aspects of the story still confuse me but I'll go into that for my ruin and rising review. 3.25 stars :)