Ruin and Rising Review

     The Sun Summoner cannot Summon, the tracker is disgraced, and the Second Army is in tatters, all the while the Darkling reigns from his throne of shadows. Alina must recover from their latest battle, so she goes underground under the care of The Apparat and his followers who all believe she is a Saint. In order to finally win the war, she must find the final amplifier and hope that her prince ally is still alive. The war is coming to a climax, and only Alina can prevent the darkness from consuming Ravka. In order to do this, though, she may face her own ruin.

    Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:

    I kind of went back and forth for what rating I was going to give this book. I felt like it was not quite a four or five, so I am going to do something I do not normally do. I am going to give a half point. Therefore, my actual rating for this is 4.5 out of 5. You will see why I did this in a little. I do not have a ton to say about this book, so it will be a fairly short review.

    The characters grew once more. All that I said about their growth in my review for the second book is amplified (get it? sorry- I had to!). I liked the surprises that occurred with a couple of the characters. I also was pushed that last little bit into loving Mal.

    The world building was, once again, strong. I had no issue with imagining everything as it happened, just like a movie in my head.

    The reason I am giving it that half point off is because of the plot. For the majority of the book, it was engaging and I enjoyed reading it a lot. However, there were a few times where I felt like it needed to be moved along a bit because I was a tad bored. When a book really has me, I can't put it down and when I am forced to, I keep thinking about it and how much I want to go back to reading. There were points in the book where I could easily put it down and focus on the task that stopped me from reading, so that is how you know the plot did not entirely capture me the whole way through.

    As always, I appreciate the map that is included in the beginning. I like this map even more than normal though because it has some cool features like drawings of some of the creatures readers see in the book. I also REALLY liked that the author included a page to lay out the three orders in the Grisha, their names, and the different powers within each order. This was very helpful in keeping track of who can do what while reading. It was a very good reference page. The book cover is also absolutely gorgeous once more and I love it even more because it is meaningful.

    I was pleased to find yet another interview with the author at the end of the book even though this one was a tad shorter. If you could not tell from my other reviews, one of my favorite things is getting a peak in the author's head, so these interviews were great. Another cool thing at the end of this book is fanart. Four beautiful pieces of fanart are included along with blurbs about the two artists. I really like that the author acknowledges her fans like this and takes the time to not only look at the fanart, but truly appreciate it. I am sure those lucky fans were also extremely happy. It was a nice surprise to see those.

    Overall, I would recommend giving this a read. It is worth the time it takes even with the slight boredom at times.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Publisher: Square Fish

# of Pages: 417

Genre: YA, Fantasy

Series: Shadow and Bone Trilogy (Book 3)