Him learning to let go of his overwhelming need to be the one who fixes everything, who is always in control, who has complete mastery of himself and his country was a good journey because the desire for that amount of control isn’t healthy. I think he did manage to go through an impressive character arc, far more in this book than he did in the first one. Nikolai has always been one of my favourite characters and getting more time with him, even if he wasn’t the lead, was a treat. So well, yes, Nikolai could have been in this more, what we did get with him was as delightful as it always is.

I think calling this duology the “Nikolai” duology is very misleading, because it’s really always been about Zoya (but we’ll get to that).

One of the common complaints I’ve heard about this duology is that for the ostensible lead character, Nikolai doesn’t do tons of things and he still ends up seeming kind of secondary. That was what he’d believed until this moment, standing at the gates, lookinga t Magnus Opjer. Nikolai had never missed having a father because he’d never really had one. Nikolai remembered what Zoya had said about her mother on the airship: Maybe I miss something I never had. Actually, in most plays, the fathers got killed off and had to be avenged, but they certainly seemed wise and loving in the first act. He’d read enough books and seen enough plays to understand what a father was meant to be-someone kind and steady who dispensed wisdom and taught you how to wield a sword and throw a punch. Nikolai had never understood him, never wanted to be like him. The man Nikolai had believed to be his father for most of his life had been a source of embarassment and shame. If you’re reading this, you already know what it’s all about, so let’s put the spoiler warning in place and dive right in. Nevertheless, it is review time, and since this is the second book of a duology, and the seventh book set in the GrishaVerse I’m going to dispense with the regular plot synopsis. I did enjoy it, quite a bit, but it just didn’t stay with me after finishing it the way the very best books do. Maybe it’s because it came out during exams, which is always a tricky period in which to focus in, maybe it was slightly lacklustre compared to other Leigh Bardugo books, or maybe it was because I was watching season 4 of Lucifer while reading it, which naturally commanded more of my attention. Reader, since so much of this month is going to be about Shakespeare and literature and Our Violent Ends, it seemed appropriate for the book review to branch away from that a bit and do a long-overdue review of one of spring’s hottest releases, Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo, which I have to admit didn’t make as much of an impression as I was hoping it would (certainly not as much as King of Scars did).

Rule of wolves by leigh bardugo