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Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

  • Writer: Emily Eiges
    Emily Eiges
  • Dec 21, 2021
  • 2 min read

2.8/5 stars

As I stated before in my previous review for Shadow and Bone, I found it highly entertaining and a very easy page-turner despite its flaws. I had also hoped that Alina would mature and grow once she harnessed her power and realized that some things are more important than beauty and looks - this realization never came. Instead, she continued to fall over herself at all of the other female side characters she encountered. In fact, I believe the relationship between beauty and power to be even more apparent in this sequel and I struggle to sympathize with a girl who discovers she is mighty but still can't see her worth beyond her plain appearance.


Another thing was that I found this book exciting for maybe the first 200 pages, but as the story progressed, I just kept reading with the goal of it being over. The Darkling was gone for almost the entire novel, which took the 4-star rating down to a 3.3 because he is probably one of the most critical aspects of this series. I would have much rathered more scenes with the Darkling over the scenes of Alina and Mal.


Mal is a highly dull and underdeveloped character. He is whiny, and in a world of so much magic and enchantment, he is uninteresting and pointless to the plot if you disregard the fact that he and Alina are an item. Their relationship is extremely boring, probably boring for them and boring for me to read. Mal does nothing when he isn’t insanely jealous of every man Alina has a conversation with.


Speaking of, in this book we are introduced to Nikolai, one of the two princes of Ravka who becomes a close ally of Alina’s. He quite literally carries the entire book on his back.


Enough said, this book was like fine. If I was forced to read it again, yes, I would be mad about it but now that it’s over it’s just whatever.


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