Review: Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
Published: June 17, 2014
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Pages: 422 (Hardcover)
Series: The Grisha #3
Source: Bought
My Rating: 2 of 5 stars

The capital has fallen.

The Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne.

Now the nation's fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army.

Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives.

Alina will have to forge new alliances and put aside old rivalries as she and Mal race to find the last of Morozova's amplifiers. But as she begins to unravel the Darkling's secrets, she reveals a past that will forever alter her understanding of the bond they share and the power she wields. The firebird is the one thing that stands between Ravka and destruction—and claiming it could cost Alina the very future she’s fighting for.

There are many readers out that there that absolutely adore this series and I guess I must have missed something because throughout the entire series I had this feeling of it's good, but I've read better.

The part that kept me reading was the unique setting and the Darkling. To be completely honest, I hardly cared about the other characters. The quest for the amplifiers was also something that kept me hooked. I remember be completely bored for most of the first book until they were hunting the stag, mostly because I found Alina and her friends unappealing.

The main problem with this book is how the ending was handled. There are numerous hints that the Darkling isn't beyond redemption and that maybe, just maybe Alina can save him, however in this book very little good can be seen in the Darkling. He also hardly ever makes an appearance in the book, it was mostly Alina and her friends traveling around with little reminders that the big bad Darkling is still out there. It made the ending less satisfying and would have probably bothered me a lot more if I had enjoyed the rest of the series more than I did.

Not only was the ending for the Darkling unsatisfying, but all the character development for Alina throughout the entire series is more or less thrown out the window. She goes from an orphan to a powerful Grisha to back where she started.

Nikolai is pretty much the best character in this book and the only one that I actually cared about, but like the Darkling, he doesn't have many lines and is hardly ever present. Originally I shipped Alina and Nikolai, but I realized that she hardly deserves him, especially if she's constantly pining over Mal.

If this series had ended differently, it could have been fantastic. I think even some huge fans of this series will be majorly disappointed, especially if they liked the Darkling.