Review: Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Again I don’t quite know how to catalog my thoughts on this book. 

I like a lot about this book! I liked Nikolai, I am now crazy excited to get to King of Scars. David all day every day. I like the character arc Alina has gone through so far, I appreciate her growth as a character and find it to be well done. I like that a lot of Alina and Mal’s relationship problems are so normal, not having enough time for each other, keeping small secrets until they snowball into an unwieldy thing, wanting the other to just know what you need without having to put the emotional labor in. I like the pokemonesque collecting of the special animals (with the decidedly non-pokemon murder that follows). I liked going so far outside Ravka, and the new people we met on the way back. 

I don’t really love a few things about it. I still find the world a bit underdeveloped, the magic isn’t used on the page often enough to really understand its limits and it’s costs really don’t seem to be actual in any circumstance except what happens to Alina at the end of the novel. I did appreciate the deeper look into Grisha and normal people being able to combine their strengths, I would have found this a little more compelling if I had a better understanding of the magic that non-Alina characters possess. Also, I know why I should find Alina’s powers crazy cool but for some reason my brain just kind of puts her into the category of human lamp. 

I still don’t like the Darkling. Villians gonna villain obviously but I just don’t see why this villain is presented in such a way that a seemingly large number of people are seduced by the sexy fascist thing. I feel like the theme of ‘concentrated power is corrupting’ isn’t hammered home quite as much as I would prefer. Though I was also annoyed at the foreshadowing for some events that I had already guessed what was coming for so I guess I am sort of being a hypocrite. 

The ending of the book really sold it for me. I thought the plotting for this book was very well executed. The cascade of events of the finale and the parts just proceeding it made me want to sprint my way to the end. In the awesome devouring a book way. I love the third person closing of the novel, I love where the plot is headed, I am genuinely interested to find out where the next book leads. 

This is a series I very much wish I had read when I was younger, or just when I had read less secondary world fantasy, I think I might have had a significantly different reading experience with the first book and the first third of this book. But I am enjoying a lot about this series and I am determined to be caught up on Leigh Bardugo’s books asap. 

I am landing on more positive than balanced. I am optimistic about my continued enjoyment of Leigh Bardugo.

I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads and finished reading it on February 21st, 2018.