Reviews

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo

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blurrypetals's review

5.0

Even though I love The Grisha Trilogy as well as the Six of Crows duology, I only recently found full contentment in the two endings upon my latest reread in order to prepare for this book's release. While I still think Crooked Kingdom is Bardugo's strongest and most enjoyable effort, I believe this book is Bardugo's most immediately satisfying ending.

This book, really, was altogether extremely satisfying. It and King of Scars had to play a tricky little balancing act to please both sides of the Grishaverse coin: continue and do justice to the stories of the Ravkans we left behind at the end of Ruin and Rising and continue and do justice to the story of Nina Zenik after suffering a considerable loss at the end of Crooked Kingdom. King of Scars expertly set those dominoes up. Rule of Wolves toppled them over and it was breathtaking.

I really love how things played out, expertly weaving together both halves of this universe until it all came crashing down at the end. Zoya was never a favorite of mine, not even after King of Scars, but this book finally brought her entire character arc into focus, making me appreciate damn near everything about her in a way I had never appreciated before. Nikolai's entire story also came to a satisfying and fitting close and I'm just so proud of him and everything he accomplished.

I think this brought so much good to the table. I loved everything with the Shu princesses, Nina and Hanne pulling one over on all of Fjerda, Zoya and her dragon, the brief yet interesting return of Alina and...even Mal. My favorite part was definitely the little mini heist with Kaz, Jesper, and Wylan but I also loved the small appearance from Inej at the end, too. I've wanted a continuation or an epilogue of some sort for the four of them for some time now, so now that we've seen them all again and the third Six of Crows book is all but confirmed at this point, it made this a beautiful epilogue and an intriguing new chapter.

I'm over the moon about this book and I'm so glad this book's release got me to reread the rest of the series, because having it all fresh in my mind made it all that much more enjoyable! It might feel like a finale in some ways, but this universe is just starting to gain traction and I'm ever excited to see the heights it soars to next.

malliexreads's review

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3.0

Yeah, I’m going to be completely honest. This book was kind of a huge mess. There were so many twists and turns that made the story absolutely absurd. Everything worked out perhaps too perfectly. And wasn’t this supposed to be the final book to the grishaverse? There’s no way, not with that ending.

I’d really say the book is about 2 stars, if felt very rushed and mostly served as fan service. However (spoiler?) those cameos were everything. So I bonus star solely for that.