beware of spoilery review :)

"Nikolai" duology, they said.

King of Scars was supposed to be good. The hype was real, countless of fans had been dying for a Nikolai book since ever, and oh boy, are we disappointed. Because where is Nikolai's book? Is this, whatever this is, it? How is Nikolai not the protagonist of his own book? And if you tell me that the book isn't only his I'm going to throw my hardcover copy in your window because I am done, the frustration is too much and if Zoya gets a pass for being a rude person 24/7, well, so do I. But I gotta give it to Zoya, she is less this time around, almost as if she got tuned down for the role of the love interest that does not fit her. Anyway... I feel like random things were thrown together for this book and accepted because of its sequel.

The first two chapters fooled me, there was so much potential and it was a great start. It set the tone for the book: Nikolai and his fight against his demon. But soon enough I realized that the first chapters were too good to be true, that the tone was a mislead, because I have been misleading myself. Nikolai and Zoya's plot got progressively worse while Nina's got better, and by the end of the book I was dreading whatever foolery would happen to Nikolai and Zoya while at the same time being delighted with the twists on Nina's chapters. There was clearly more investment from the author's part on one plot while winging it with the other. Leigh is a capable writer, we all know that, but her lack of interest for this book can be noticed. Either she was being lazy or didn't care enough about it, the end result was a mess. Magical rules that she had set for her world were ignored, the plot devices were ridiculous. Bees? Really? Was she reading The Raven King when writing this and thinking "a giant hornet? what an espectacular idea" and then proceed to write something just as dumb? Not much made sense in this book and the things that made sense before were brushed off. The book went from having an interesting premise to fillers upon fillers to get to the grand plot device of them all, the resurrection of the Darkling.

And this comes from someone who absolutely loves him, who has him as her favorite character, but the Darkling should've stayed dead. Can authors, please, own up to their character's death? When a character dies and is brought back to life it takes away all of the emotional impact. It's meaningless. And is even worse when is done out of fan service. Because let's face it, it is. But not only did Leigh brought back the Darkling but she had to scold us while doing it. She had to shade us in every way she could. Be it from a quote calling us fools, or a cult plot in which every person seemed delusional or something else just as conceited. Listen, yes, the Darkling was terrible. He was a villain. But you shouldn't mock your readers for enjoying a character for its complexity, a character you wrote. That did not sit well with me throughout the book. But in the end for better or worse she brought him back, in the most uncreative way she possibly could. And worse, in the process of doing that she sacrificed Nikolai's story. The book that should be his and bears his name was anything but his, and in the end it dawns on you that the Darkling was not the plot device, Nikolai was.

At some point, a random character named Isaak got his own chapters. It came out of nowhere, 3/4 in the book. We did not get his chapters before, there was no background, no reason why we should care for him. And by the time Isaak was having a talk with the Shu princess and possible future wife of Nikolai, I felt sad. Because there I was, reading this random dude (no offense to Isaak, he was a stand up guy) doing all the things that Nikolai should be doing were he not preocupied in being stranged in a castle made of sand waiting for the oportune moment to serve his purpose. Isaak did all the politics, the courting, the attempted assassinations... And when Nikolai got back and cleared the air, I felt super sad again because there was so much potential not explored for him in this book. Instead he wandered around, doing what feels like nothing, just wasting time and development. And is worth noting that Zoya was with him all along and how Nikolai did not had scenes with another woman in the whole book, maybe the author really wanted us to buy into his relationship with Zoya. But to me they are not compatible, and only one short moment Nikolai had with another character was enough to scream that. No matter how much time he spends with only Zoya, how many "banters" they have, it all feels too flat, there is no chemistry, there was no real development. Yet another thing in which the author did not tried at all.

I am very upset about a lot of things, but mostly I'm sad for Nikolai. He is such a great character, he deserved better than this.

The star is solely for Nina. Her plot was great, the side characters were great. I'm rooting for her.