What is infinite, Bardugo asks constantly in this book, and she gives us this answer: "the universe and the greed of men." This sentiment echoes throughout this series, as greed battles good, in which ultimately one can win. But it is not an easy battle. It is one full of ruin, and scars, and destruction. But it is also full of great transformations, beginning with a girl who was nothing, who became a saint, and rose again to do everything in her power to defeat darkness. A symbolic, poetic, and inspirational end to a beloved trilogy, Ruin and Rising is chock-full of relatable characters, beautiful developments, and all the shocks a fantasy novel needs to be forever remembered by all readers. Enter into the last story and the biggest battle of Alina Starkov, at your own risk.Leigh Bardugo is a #1 New York Times Bestselling author of fantasy novels, her most notable being those involved with the Grishaverse. Those include the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, The Language of Thorns, King of Scars and The Lives of Saints. She's also received critical acclaim for her novel, Ninth House, which, along with some of the Grishaverse books, will be soon coming to TV! If you're interested in more of my reviews of Leigh Bardugo's work, you can find them all here.
Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner, is incredibly weakened and powerless after her battle with the Darkling. All her hopes in defeating him lie in a lost privateer, a broken army, and a last-ditch effort to find the third amplifier for her disappeared powers. But when the Darkling is ready to foil at Alina at every turn, she has to make the biggest sacrifice she's never even thought of. Who will survive the rising? Can Alina win against an ancient darkness?
At the beginning of our journey with Alina, I'd mentioned that she was one of the best main characters the genre of fantasy has ever seen, and that holds true through the stunning conclusion of this trilogy. She's taken on so many personas, and has tried to understand the impossible (improbable?) while saving what truly matters to her. Her character has evolved so beautifully, naturally, and almost effortlessly throughout the course of this trilogy. Bardugo clearly worked hard at developing Alina, and making her relatable but also deserving of this "hero-status" she achieves among many Ravkans. Her development in Ruin and Rising is quite possibly my favorite, because Alina views herself as a girl that no longer exists, and also a larger-than-life figure that has to serve more people than just her inner circle. Those are two extreme ends of a spectrum, and Alina actually ends up falling somewhere towards the middle, despite her endless debating. I also think this development is poetic, in a sense, because at the end (spoilers!) she achieves both of those extreme statuses at the same time. She loses her power and becomes the ordinary girl she longed for when she originally found her power, but she also achieved martyrdom and a saint-like existence for eternity by framing her own death. Her desire to be normal and yet her longing for power throughout the whole series echoes the way everyone lives: no one wants to be super special, but everyone wants just enough money or power to sustain themselves and be happy. By the time the end of the epilogue rolls around, I think we could safely say that Alina has earned that.
But let's talk about some of the other girls in this series. Zoya and Genya are beautiful and poetic in themselves too. Genya starts as the beautifully perfect best friend, transitions to traitor, and is transformed into the scarred "Ruined One" by the beginning of this novel. Her journey through this war is not pretty, but is inspiring. At first, you could kind of hate Genya for being perfect -- everyone kind of loathes or is jealous of their beautiful best friend, after all. But despite Genya's beliefs, she still found a way to the just cause, and recognized the Darkling's evil. This character development is strategic and beautiful, because, just like with Alina, we learn that perfect girls aren't always perfect, and not traditionally beautiful girls are always beautiful. Zoya, on the other hand, we star the trilogy loathing, because Alina is jealous of Mal's attentions towards her. But by the end of this novel, we see Zoya as loyal and strong, despite her mean-girl edge. That edge allowed her to survive, and exist among people who might not want her. Even Bardugo commented that she was falling in love with writing Zoya, and I felt her growing on me. I know she's a big player, along with Genya, in King of Scars, and I'm excited to further track these ladies' character developments through Nikolai's duology.
Nikolai, Mal, and the Darkling are Bardugo's much loved, much famed male characters. I never feel like Mal gets enough love or recognition! I loved him right off the bat, and mentioned so in my review of Shadow and Bone. I was absolutely shocked, and yet not too surprised, by the reveal near the end of Ruin and Rising, and was so overwhelmed by what happened in the battle scene that I had to set the book down. Mal's character development is also so subtle, possibly because he's a rock for Alina, and yet also challenges her throughout the series. His relationship with her evolved so much, that if someone had told me the ending of this series when I was in the middle of Siege and Storm, I wouldn't have believed them. But after reading the epilogue, I felt the echo of stories long before (kind of a spoiler!): a couple beating the odds so they could live a happily ever after. And that just made this love story so unique, because Alina's and Mal's love story was slow-boiling, and because the love story was not the central focus point on which the trilogy revolved.
Our beloved privateer makes a comeback in Ruin and Rising -- did we expect anything less? I grinned so widely when he made his dramatic entrance, and almost cried when he was attacked and taken over by the Darkling's strange shadow powers. We don't see as much of Nikolai in this book as we did in Siege and Storm, and yet that's not too much of a problem: he makes another comeback in a whole new book, King of Scars.
The Darkling is one of Bardugo's most complex characters. He's an ancient power, but he's just a boy. He's lived years in grief, but can still suffer great losses. He has lived for so long, and yet he still has hope. The Darkling is a character of contrasts, which is part of what makes him such a brilliant character. I was utterly shocked by his betrayal in Shadow and Bone, and yet felt he got the ending he deserved in this novel. I was glad that Alina was always drawn to him, through their bond, because I was also drawn to the Darkling, in a way I've never been drawn to the antagonist before. My only wish is that we might have understood him better, so that we could (spoiler!) better grieve the loss of a man who, like Nikolai, also wanted what was best for Ravka -- even if he was blinded by power and greed.
A foolish old friend of mine told me that she's read Shadow and Bones after coming across Six of Crows and din't love Alina and Mal as much as Kaz. She suggested I just stay away from this trilogy, and for a while, I did. Luckily, though, I took a shot in the dark and read this series in less than a week. In a way, I loved it more than I loved Six of Crows. Don't get me wrong, Kaz and the Crows hold a special place in my heart, but Alina and her crew are full of characters I relate to on really deep, personal levels. That's something special readers won't always find, especially in fantasy and complicated and twisted as the Grishaverse. My old friend said the writing was weaker, but I thought the first person lent Alina a kind of strength we don't see with Kaz or Inej. In fact, I don't even know why she was comparing the two series at all: they contrast each other and reflect each other, but they are not comparable. All of the characters in each of these stories have worthwhile stories, and deserve (and have earned!) the right to be read. I'm just so excited to see how they will come to life on the screen later this year!
Nikolai was one of my favorite characters from this series, especially since I'd already caught his cameo in Crooked Kingdom and King of Scars earlier this year. Now, after reading the Shadow and Bone trilogy, I have decided I need to reread King of Scars because I want fully understand his journey in that book after finally uncovering his past. After the fight with the Darkling, in which Nikolai is forever changed, he has become King of Ravka. But the Darkling's magic still exists in Nikolai, and he wants to fix that once and for all. Stay tuned for my review of King of Scars.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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