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A review by ravensandlace
Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
5.0
Read this review at your own risk. I will mark the entire thing as one giant spoiler because I don't want to keep tagging everything. This may be a pretty lengthy review. I have a lot to discuss.
Jesus, man. Where do I even begin?? I mean, really. What am I supposed to with this and this hole in my heart that Leigh Bardugo made. Am I just supposed to move on from this? How? TELL ME HOW! I haven't been this wrecked since the ending of Harry Potter. I was more or less upset that there were no more books for me to look forward to about Harry.
You guys don't understand how many tears I had to hold back at the end of this. I want things to work out so well and I feel like they did and didn't. But I'm extremely conflicted on how the book ended. I feel that in a way it was a total cop out. But then on the other hand, I feel like it made some sense. I don't know if I'm happy, sad, mad, or all of the above. I will try and figure it out as I write this review.
During the course of the book, I was relieved. Mal and Alina decided to be friends(ish). I truly felt like the relationship that they had wasn't good and in some ways, I still feel this way. I felt it was toxic and at some times incredibly one sided. Mal was selfish and at times, really horrible to Alina just because of who she was. He couldn't come to terms with Alina having power and being as powerful as the Darkling. I feel that if Mal truly loved Alina, her powers wouldn't have mattered. They would have found a way to make it work. Instead, he often guilt tripped her and played the "woe is me" card on her. Alina was better off without him, even if he was the world's best tracker.
Alina, I felt, wanted too much from Mal. I think she often forgot that Mal wasn't Grisha and I think she wanted him to be so badly that it caused a rift. Mal felt this rift and in turn, lashed out at Alina. I always felt that Alina gave too much in the relationship. In Jodi Picoult's book Mercy , one of the characters talks about different amounts of love. There is 50/50 love, where both people give the same amount of love. But there is also 75/25 love, where there is someone giving more love than the other. Alina and Mal's relationship was 75/25, I felt, with Alina giving most of the love. You guys can fight me all you want about it, but I will forever believe that fact.
As for the Darkling and Alina, I think they were a better fit. Yes, the Darkling did horrible things and murdered thousands of innocent people just because he could. But once we got his backstory, I felt so much pity for him, even though I didn't want too. But I'm in no way excusing what he did. The Darkling just wanted to be loved. I think he was perhaps jealous of the love that Alina and Mal shared (however one sided it was) and that caused a lot of the tantrums (for lack of better words). But I think Alina could have helped tame the Darkling and rein him in. True, Alina was started to become a bit corrupted with power but she never let it truly destroy her. She could have showed the Darkling there were better ways to deal with the loss of love then by destroying and killing.
Let's break the ending down step by step, now that we got the characters out of the way. I think that Alina should have been able to keep her powers. I mean, if Mal couldn't accept Alina as a Grisha then he didn't deserve her. At one point, the only thing Alina had to rely on was her power because everybody around her was so damn untrustworthy, even Mal. I liked that Alina felt powerful with her power. She spent her whole life being weak (partly because of Mal) and she was finally building her self confidence and accepting who she was after fighting it for so long. To have this book end with her power being taken from her, I felt, was really cruel. But she did get her heart's desire, which was to be with Mal, which I will discuss in the next paragraph.
Her ending up with Mal....I'm not sure about it yet. Toward the end of the book, I was starting to like Mal but I still preferred Alina to end up with someone like Nikolai. She needed someone who challenged her in a healthy way. Nikolai did that. The banter between Alina and Nikolai had me laughing out loud, which is something I normally don't do in a book. Mal guilted Alina repeatedly over things that were often outside of her control. He toyed with her emotions and that often hindered Alina from being the best Sun Summoner she could be. I wouldn't even have minded an ending with the Darkling. Maybe she could have changed him and get him to use his powers for good. I mean, they were obviously connected due to the collar and the fact that they were the two most powerful Grisha in the world. I could see that relationship working out.
To wrap up super long post and probably my longest ever, I think that things could have been different for Alina. I wanted things to go so right for her since everything went wrong in so many ways. I feel that parts of the ending were a bit of a cop out, as I mentioned above. I think that Alina should have still retained her power and maybe then, Mal could have finally accepted her for who she was. I would have loved to see Alina help train other Grisha. I would have even liked to see the Darkling still alive and have changed his ways for the better, maybe with even Alina by his side. He could make amends for what he did. There were so many, I think, better options that Leigh Bardugo could have done.
So even with that ending, I'm happy I read this book and this series. No series is perfect, not even Harry Potter (but it's a close one, for sure). I am happy that, in the end, everything worked out, even if it wasn't too my precise liking. I'm glad that this book doesn't have to be read before Six of Crows. I feel that it's its own separate entity. Overall, I'm just happy. Another well written series under my belt.
Jesus, man. Where do I even begin?? I mean, really. What am I supposed to with this and this hole in my heart that Leigh Bardugo made. Am I just supposed to move on from this? How? TELL ME HOW! I haven't been this wrecked since the ending of Harry Potter. I was more or less upset that there were no more books for me to look forward to about Harry.
You guys don't understand how many tears I had to hold back at the end of this. I want things to work out so well and I feel like they did and didn't. But I'm extremely conflicted on how the book ended. I feel that in a way it was a total cop out. But then on the other hand, I feel like it made some sense. I don't know if I'm happy, sad, mad, or all of the above. I will try and figure it out as I write this review.
During the course of the book, I was relieved. Mal and Alina decided to be friends(ish). I truly felt like the relationship that they had wasn't good and in some ways, I still feel this way. I felt it was toxic and at some times incredibly one sided. Mal was selfish and at times, really horrible to Alina just because of who she was. He couldn't come to terms with Alina having power and being as powerful as the Darkling. I feel that if Mal truly loved Alina, her powers wouldn't have mattered. They would have found a way to make it work. Instead, he often guilt tripped her and played the "woe is me" card on her. Alina was better off without him, even if he was the world's best tracker.
Alina, I felt, wanted too much from Mal. I think she often forgot that Mal wasn't Grisha and I think she wanted him to be so badly that it caused a rift. Mal felt this rift and in turn, lashed out at Alina. I always felt that Alina gave too much in the relationship. In Jodi Picoult's book Mercy , one of the characters talks about different amounts of love. There is 50/50 love, where both people give the same amount of love. But there is also 75/25 love, where there is someone giving more love than the other. Alina and Mal's relationship was 75/25, I felt, with Alina giving most of the love. You guys can fight me all you want about it, but I will forever believe that fact.
As for the Darkling and Alina, I think they were a better fit. Yes, the Darkling did horrible things and murdered thousands of innocent people just because he could. But once we got his backstory, I felt so much pity for him, even though I didn't want too. But I'm in no way excusing what he did. The Darkling just wanted to be loved. I think he was perhaps jealous of the love that Alina and Mal shared (however one sided it was) and that caused a lot of the tantrums (for lack of better words). But I think Alina could have helped tame the Darkling and rein him in. True, Alina was started to become a bit corrupted with power but she never let it truly destroy her. She could have showed the Darkling there were better ways to deal with the loss of love then by destroying and killing.
Let's break the ending down step by step, now that we got the characters out of the way. I think that Alina should have been able to keep her powers. I mean, if Mal couldn't accept Alina as a Grisha then he didn't deserve her. At one point, the only thing Alina had to rely on was her power because everybody around her was so damn untrustworthy, even Mal. I liked that Alina felt powerful with her power. She spent her whole life being weak (partly because of Mal) and she was finally building her self confidence and accepting who she was after fighting it for so long. To have this book end with her power being taken from her, I felt, was really cruel. But she did get her heart's desire, which was to be with Mal, which I will discuss in the next paragraph.
Her ending up with Mal....I'm not sure about it yet. Toward the end of the book, I was starting to like Mal but I still preferred Alina to end up with someone like Nikolai. She needed someone who challenged her in a healthy way. Nikolai did that. The banter between Alina and Nikolai had me laughing out loud, which is something I normally don't do in a book. Mal guilted Alina repeatedly over things that were often outside of her control. He toyed with her emotions and that often hindered Alina from being the best Sun Summoner she could be. I wouldn't even have minded an ending with the Darkling. Maybe she could have changed him and get him to use his powers for good. I mean, they were obviously connected due to the collar and the fact that they were the two most powerful Grisha in the world. I could see that relationship working out.
To wrap up super long post and probably my longest ever, I think that things could have been different for Alina. I wanted things to go so right for her since everything went wrong in so many ways. I feel that parts of the ending were a bit of a cop out, as I mentioned above. I think that Alina should have still retained her power and maybe then, Mal could have finally accepted her for who she was. I would have loved to see Alina help train other Grisha. I would have even liked to see the Darkling still alive and have changed his ways for the better, maybe with even Alina by his side. He could make amends for what he did. There were so many, I think, better options that Leigh Bardugo could have done.
So even with that ending, I'm happy I read this book and this series. No series is perfect, not even Harry Potter (but it's a close one, for sure). I am happy that, in the end, everything worked out, even if it wasn't too my precise liking. I'm glad that this book doesn't have to be read before Six of Crows. I feel that it's its own separate entity. Overall, I'm just happy. Another well written series under my belt.