https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36307634-king-of-scars

“Nikolai Lantsov has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country’s bloody civil war—and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, the young king must find a way to refill Ravka’s coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.

Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha Squaller, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren’t meant to stay buried—and some wounds aren’t meant to heal.”

As a writer myself I’m often very critical of the books I read. I want to be gripped from the beginning and told a fantastical tale of impossible proportions. King of Scars had that hook for me right in the first chapter and despite feeling the book went by too quickly, it was MOSTLY perfect. I found some things to be a little bit off therefore earning it a rating of 4.5/5 stars for me. Interested enough to want to know more? Keep reading to see what I thought about the elements of the book.

Characters:

First off let me start by saying Nikolai is my favorite character of all time written by Leigh Bardugo. I don’t like the Darkling I never did, Alina did not make me jump for joy and I hated Mal with a furious passion. I didn’t read the Six of Crows Duology so I cannot speak for those characters, however even without reading all of Leigh’s previous Grishaverse novels I felt a strong connection to some of the characters in this book. Nikolai is AMAZING. I love that he’s sassy and smart but he also has a broken part of him he’s constantly trying to fix. It makes him more human, more relatable and so much easier to understand his motives. He tries to be a hero and pulls it off effortlessly letting his cool confidence show and allowing people to trust in his ability to rule Ravka.

In this books we get 4 separate perspectives: Zoya, Nikolai, Issak and Nina. While I was upset at first about the fact that it seemed we were getting more Zoya and Nina than Nikolai it really made sense for the overall story. I’m just happy that it focuses on Nikolai and how he deals with the events laid out before him. I felt like we got a lot of development with all the characters. We saw Zoya become stronger, Nikolai become wise and Nina become more ruthless. I really enjoyed reading from Zoya’s perspective, I have anew found respect for her as a character and I really liked getting to know more about her. Nina was also interesting as we got to see her internal struggles as she moved on with her life. Issak came very late to the came so I don’t want to reveal too much about him. I thought he was a welcome addition though not a completely necessary one. Overall I think that these 3 perspectives were a great way to tell the story that needed to be told, I personally loved all the characters…minus the bad guys I just hated them.

Setting:

This is a tough category to really judge. Technically we have ALREADY been in the Grishaverse for 5 books so we know and love this world even though it has changed. There are some new exciting areas we got to explore however as I said the world has already been built so it’s just building on the foundation that was laid down. I enjoyed returning to Ravka and exploring more of what it had to offer and I look forward to learning even more in the future.

Plot:

I struggled here. The book felt very focused on only a few events, and we sometimes spent pages in one place just treading water. While I still enjoyed the plot and the story-line of the book I felt lost sometimes. There was more than enough action it just felt like sometimes we were trying to prolong the inevitable. At one point in the book I was thinking that Leigh was only adding the fluff to up the page count.

Author’s Writing Style:

There is not doubt about it, I absolutely adore Leigh’s writing. If I’m being 100% honest the only reason I picked this up and wanted to read it was because of Leigh Bardugo. I love her world building skills I love the way she describes and introduces her characters to her hearts. This book was no exception, while I was bored sometimes with things going on I was for the most part enraptured in the story and the book. She writes in such a way that everything feels like it’s flying by.

Overall I loved the characters and the writing style of the book. I felt there were some unneeded parts in the plot of the book however that’s a minor compared to the overall plot. The setting wasn’t anything new but I already knew this going into it and that is why I wanted this book, I wanted to know more about the Grishaverse. So with the small boring parts of the book I gave this one an overall rating of 4.5/5 stars because I still enjoyed this
A LOT! And that ending though!