Started: 2/3/2019
Finished: 2/3/2019
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
King of Scars is one of my favorite books of 2019 I’m calling it already. I know it seems early, but the second I finished this book I wanted to start it again from the beginning. Also, I’m pretty sure this is my new favorite Leigh Bardugo book. Yeah, I said it. Someone apologize to Crooked Kingdom for me. (By the way, this review is spoiler-y from the beginning. You’ve been warned.)
King of Scars follows multiple perspectives, the main three being that of Nikolai, Nina, and Zoya. Nikolai is now king of Ravka and plagued by the monster the Darkling cursed him with. Zoya is his right-hand-woman, helping him drag Ravka back from the ravaging of war. Nina has been sent off to help gather more Grisha and bury her love, Matthias. These three stories come together to build one beautiful story of turmoil and uncertainty in an unstable kingdom.
Now that I have read all of the Grisha trilogy and the Six of Crows duology, it was really nice to get back into this world. Leigh writes within this world like she knows it, like she’s been there and lived there forever. Whenever I read one of her books I immediately want to leave my home behind and become a Grisha squaller. It might also be because Zoya is the coolest person ever and I aspire to be like her.
From the Grisha trilogy, Nikolai and Zoya were two of my favorite characters, so it was really nice to have a book focused on the two of them. They have a really wonderful dynamic, Nikolai being jovial and charming while Zoya is more serious and doesn’t take any shit, not even from Nikolai. They balance each other out so beautifully, and it’s really nice to get to see their friendship develop and experience how they work together as a team. It was especially nice to see how they both deal with the monster plaguing Nikolai during their journey to ridding him of it.
I have to admit that I cried a lot during the Nina chapters, and a lot of it had to do with Matthias. I really loved him in Crooked Kingdom and his death (while understandable from a plot standpoint) was SO PAINFUL. Now having to relive that grief with Nina was heart-wrenching and achingly beautiful. Leigh was really able to give us the depth of the loss Nina was feeling without it overpowering the narrative and feeling really resolved when the grief wasn’t so strong. It felt like a really good way to close that chapter of Nina’s life without forgetting about Matthias and what he meant to her.
While this book is pretty slow burn, the shipping was STRONG. We had Nikolai and Zoya (whom I ship SO HARD) and then Nina and a new character Hanne. Both ships were so perfectly set-up, especially for the second book, and I can’t wait to see more of them. I absolutely fell in love with Hanne as a character. She was strong yet soft and unsure of herself, but it was really clear where her characterization is going in the future. I’m really glad that Nina decided to stay with Hanne and figure out how to change Fjerda from within.
There were so many great mini plots within this story and so many great new characters that I absolutely fell in love with. I was absolutely gutted by the death in this book and then absolutely shocked by the big reveal at the end. It left on such an amazing cliff-hanger that I’m just absolutely pumped for the next book. I wish I had it in my hands right now. I know it will take forever to get the second book, so hopefully I can reread Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom and King of Scars in the meantime!