syllareads's Reviews (951)

King of Scars is the latest installment in the Grisha-Verse by Leigh Bardugo and the first of her Nikolai-Duology. Before I get to my thoughts about this fantastic book and how much I loved it, a quick warning for those new to the Grishaverse itself:
Unlike Six of Crows, you will be thoroughly confused by this book if you do not at least skim the Grisha Trilogy, beginning with Shadow and Bone. Most of the characters do get a thorough introduction but you will get swamped by a lot of tiny details you can't place unless you have SOME knowledge of the general universe.

Now to the book itself!
God, I fucking loved it

Leigh Bardugo excels at writing a story from multiple perspectives, weaving a grand masterpiece of a book from so many angles you can't tell where it will lead until the very end. King of Scars had a deliciously slow start where readers could meet old characters again and revisit Ravka and Fjerda.
Even though the author's writing hasn't entirely changed since Six of Crows, King of Scars had a different tone to it - less hectic though no less grand, a slow giant about to topple over and drag everyone to the grave with it.

Apart from the overarching plot (which was in itself just an extension of the problems that arose in Shadow and Bone already), I found myself falling in love with the characters all over again.

Zoya Nazyalensky, refined Mean Girl, had already been growing on me the more I read through the Grisha Trilogy but this book paints her in a different light and shows more about her past, about the essence of her soul and the insecurities and fear she tries to hide like the actress she is.

Nikolai Lantsov, Boy King, War Hero - the price he's paid for those titles is steeper than even he likes to admit to himself, and the more this book progressed, the more his mask crumbled to the ground. In the end, maybe we are our own monsters.

Nina Zenik, Bonewitch, zowa, one of my favorite characters from the Six of Crows Duology, did not disappoint either. Her chapters were colored with an unfamiliar weariness and cruelty though none of these qualities were some she'd been fully missing in her previous chapters. In fact, I felt like King of Scars was only the finishing touches to a ruthless diamond in the rough, a way to make her shine even brighter than she already had before.

The quiet moments are where Leigh Bardugo excels like no other and it is what makes her characters feel particularly alive. Especially her female characters are particularly dear to me with their complexity and wit. Hanne, her newest addition to her amazing cast, grew instantly on me - a rough and wild girl, unable to hide her nature as much as she wants to, fond of baking and sewing and riding bareback into the wild. Her and Nina's interaction were some of my favorite moments throughout the entire book - Nina's unapologetic ruthlessness compared to Hanne's quiet but iron-hard resolve, their differing opinions on themselves and their womanhood, both through experience and prejudice formed by their own countries, clashed deliciously and created two fantastic female characters I found myself fall in love with over and over again.


All in all: I devoured every page of this slow and beautiful masterpiece, and I can't wait for a resolution of the last-minute cliffhanger Bardugo left us with! It's wonderful seeing her grow as an author as her characters grow with her and her chapters leave me eagerly turning the pages to experience more of it every single time.