Oh my gosh, where do I start? This book really took me by surprise. After the absolute disaster that was Siege and Storm, I totally didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. There are definitely things about it that I think should have been done differently, but overall I thought that it was a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. 

I must admit that I don't really like the protagonist, Alina, even if there were a few instances when I started to warm up to her. But I felt that out of the three books, I liked her the most in this one. 

On the other hand, I found the antagonist's plot line very interesting to follow as he's one of the most well-crafted villains that I've encountered. 

The world-building in this series was generally not done very well and eventhough Ruin and Rising did answer some of the remaining questions, there are still loads more left. And as I've mentioned in my review of Shadow and Bone, I really wish that the author did more research into Russian culture as it would have helped in this aspect. 

Another thing that I would like to mention is that I think that narrating the story from a first person perspective was a bad move as it really hindered the development of the world. 

As for the book itself, it was quite fast-paced in my opinion (especially compared to the previous book in the trilogy which was very slow) and filled with action. I also loved the fact that there was a sort of quest and journey involved which is one of my favourite tropes. The ending was quite bittersweet but I can see why the author choose to end the book that way. 

I am actually kind of sad that this journey has ended for me but I still have two other duologies to read that are set in the same universe so hopefully I'll be back to the Grishaverse soon! Until next time!! 

CW: violence, mention of rape, death of characters