Review: Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
Series: The Grisha #1

Genre: YA Fantasy, Romance, Magic

Publication: June 4th 2013 by Henry Holt and Company
Length: 435 pages

Format: ebook

Goodreads

Darkness never dies.

Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land. She finds starting new is not easy while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. She can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her–or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.

 

Ah. SIEGE AND STORM, the second book to the revered trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. I’ll say that I liked this one more than SHADOW AND BONE, and the ending intrigues me a lot more than I think S&B did. (I’m honestly not sure how to write a review for this because my thoughts are just SO frazzled, so I’m just going with the classic list format.)

What I liked:

• The angst in this book was off the walls. And I LOVED it. I don’t know if it’s just me because I just love angsty novels, but I felt like it had more emotion that I think was absent from S&B.
• Nikolai! So charming and intelligent, and I can’t imagine giving this book more than 3 stars if he wasn’t in it. I loved him a lot, okay?
• The writing style in this was so much better than that of S&B. The first book’s writing was so static and boooooring, but this book’s style was flowing and I enjoyed reading it a lot more.

What I didn’t like:

• Why wasn’t there more of the Darkling in this book? He’s my problematic fav, and I MISSED HIM SO MUCH.
• Mal is SO WHINY. He’s developing into a Ross Geller-Adam Kent character, which I do not like AT ALL.
• Some chapters were very slow and I felt like several of them were just filler chapters, which was also quite tedious to read.

Overall, I think this book was an improvement from SHADOW AND BONE. Whereas S&B merely seemed to introduce the characters and story, SIEGE AND STORM was more well-written and had more aspects that intrigued me. I’m looking forward to reading RUIN AND RISING!

Have you read SIEGE AND STORM? What are your thoughts? Which book in the trilogy was your favorite? Drop me a comment below!

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