Ruin and Rising

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Pages: 417
Genre: YA Fantasy
First Published: June 2014
Book Description: The nation's fate rests with a broken Sunsummoner, a disgraced tracker and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army.
The Darkling rules from his shadow throne while a weakened Alina Starkov recovers from her battle under the dubious protection of the zealots who worship her as a saint. Now their hopes lie with the magic of long ago vanished ancient creature and the chance that an outlaw prince still survives.
As her allies and enemies race toward war, only Alina stands between her country and a rising tide of darkness that could destroy the world. To win this fight, she must seize a legend's power- but claiming the Firebird may be her ruin.

  • Characters: 8.5
    • Alina and Mal keep revolving around one another but their lack of communication and sense of duty is annoying. They are definitely meant to be together, wh must they make it so damned difficult?
    • There are others couples forming which is sweet and lovely even in the middle of a war, they still have time and energy to dedicate it towards finding someone.
    • The Darkling still has some humanity left, again its difficult to make up your mind about him. Either to hate him or simply place him like a very loyal man who's methods of obtaining freedom for his people is very unorthodox. 
  • Plot: 8.5
    • The story was fast paced and full of their careful planning falling apart, one thing after the other went bad for our heroes. There were some very interesting twists that you didn't really see coming, yes the main one being the third amplifier and the effects it would actually have. Though the very end was a little too convenient; well I do love an ending where people get what they always wanted. So be warned, very convenient ending ok?
  • Writing Style: 9.0
    • I do enjoy the way it was written, fast-paced and easy to understand. 
  • Logic: 8.0
    • The story does show the perils of a struggle in the whole country, it has a lot of sense the decisions that have to be made and their odds, do make their effort see almost hopeless. The fight and allies are more out of loyalty than a firm belief of their victory. They have so much against them that anything else would have been hard to believe.
    • Again just towards the end, specifically the Mal-Aliina thing is not completely logical, its more like a nice way to arrange the ending but still because I like the way it ends, not much complaining.
  • Intrigue: 8.5
    • The fact that they are facing a more powerful enemy, that have almost no resources and then to top it all they keep getting nasty surprises from the enemy keeps you reading in a kind of suspense. You really just need to know what comes next. 
  • Intention: 8.5
    • Ok so the main thing to take away here is that there are some things that require such a great sacrifice that you might regret finding it in the first place.
    • Loyalty is a big thing in this story as it is forgiveness and seeing the situation from another point of view even if it is so opposite of your own. The characters here show huge attributes like those, extreme loyalty and understanding.
  • Enjoyment: 10.0

Total Score: 61
Average: 8.71
Star rating: 4.5

 Used to accomplish challenges:

  • Advent Readathon.
    • Deck the halls. Read a red book.
    • I saw mummy kiss Santa. Read a book with romance.
  • BFF Readathon.
    • Pick a book you think you'll never read.

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