King of Scars Book Review

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE GRISHA TRILOGY AND SIX OF CROWS DUOLOGY BUT NOT FOR KING OF SCARS.

From Goodreads: Nikolai Lantsov has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country’s bloody civil war—and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, the young king must find a way to refill Ravka’s coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.

Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha Squaller, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren’t meant to stay buried—and some wounds aren’t meant to heal.

Obviously, this is one of the most anticipated books of the year, and I’m so pleased that we got hold of it in January instead of having to wait til later in 2019. It already feels like forever ago that Bardugo announced King of Scars and I don’t think my impatient little nerves could take more waiting!

First up, I wanted to do a stop and stare at the cover. It is simply breath-taking how intricate the cover of this book is, both with and without the jacket. It fits so well with the other Bardugo books on my shelf and I love the embossed double eagle taking centre stage here. Without the jacket the black and gold design is also stunning (so stunning I had random strangers come over to comment on it while reading at uni) and the spine is gorgeous. So much so that I’m genuinely considering leaving off the jacket when I put the book back on my shelf. I opted for the signed Waterstones edition, which probably proved to be the best option for me. I was tempted by the Illumicrate edition, which came unsigned but did have an exclusive cover, but I’m pleased to say the standard edition is just as alluring.

Now onto the book. I know a lot of people got into the Grishaverse off the backs of Six of Crows. Which is a fine thing, but I realised even in the first few pages of King of Scars that a knowledge of the original trilogy was kind of important here. It isn’t vital, and if you’ve DNFd the original series etc you can go into King of Scars without picking it up, but I would say that KoS lacks quite a bit of nuance as a read without the context of the Grisha trilogy. There were also spoilers for the ending of the Grisha trilogy (which is perhaps inevitable since it takes place in the aftermath of the series) so I’d strongly advise readers who think they might be tempted to read Bardugo’s whole oeuvre to hold off on KoS until they have read the other novels. Reading Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom is again not entirely necessary, but there are also spoilers and little references woven through KoS that it would be a shame to just ignore.

The plot of this one was pretty complex. I found myself meandering a bit through it at first. Even though I enjoyed it a lot, the plot took a while to kick off, and the pacing at the beginning is a lot slower than some of Bardugo’s previous novels. I didn’t mind so much, because it allowed us to revisit some of our favourite Grisha characters (Nina, Zoya and Nikolai it has been too long!) but it did drag a little in places. It was also a bit difficult to follow, having not re-read the Grisha trilogy in preparation. There was a lot of political and military type intrigue at play here, which probably shouldn’t surprise me since the main focus of the book is Nikolai, the King of Ravka. So yeah, lots of mentions of trade deals and country debts and things like that. I found this oddly fascinating, since it really added to the already brilliant world-building Bardugo has been crafting over the years, but it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

There were moments where I found the plot a touch confusing. I won’t give out spoilers since the book hasn’t been out for long, but there were certain events with Zoya and Nikolai and stuff about amplifiers and Grisha powers that went over my head. Again, I think a close re-read of the Grisha trilogy might clear some of this up (fortunately I will be re-reading the series later this month as part of my PhD research).

Mainly though, it was nice to see old favourites again. Nikolai is as roughish and charming as ever, and delivers some of the funniest lines of the novel. It was great to see Nina as well, even though her sections felt a bit distanced from everything else that was taking place (perhaps understandable since she was in a different country). It was nice in a way, as the book continued to explore the after effects of the Parem and Matthias’ death. I can’t say I was a giant fan of Matthias in Six of Crows, and he was probably my least favourite of the Dregs, but I admit that I welled up once or twice reading about Nina and her grief over him.

My favourite character though, to my eternal surprise, was Zoya. I disliked her so much throughout the Grisha series that it was nice to get into her head a bit with her chapters and understand her better. Again, she comes across as a very complex character with a lot of nuances and I cannot wait to see what her character does next. I am also very curious to see if the next book will come with more mentions of Alina. It was nice to touch upon some of the events in the original trilogy and I liked seeing the little references to her. Again, no spoilers, but these little references give me hope that we might be graced by a future appearance from her.

Also, it wouldn’t be a review at all if I didn’t mention my awe at the plot twist at the end. Again, I’m offering no spoilers but wow. Just wow. It was definitely woven well throughout the text and there was lots of foreshadowing of the ending that helped me see it coming but… I was so excited by this potential storyline that I almost didn’t believe it was actually coming true.

In reality, King of Scars probably won’t rank high amongst my favourite Grishaverse books but I will say that I enjoyed it a lot and the ending twist makes me SO excited for the next book. I NEED IT RIGHT NOW, DAMN IT. Overall, I’m going to give King of Scars a 9/10. I loved reading more about the characters and the world, and I loved the political intrigue, but I felt a little confused about some of the plot due to not re-reading the other books and it took a while to get into.

Favourite Quote: “One could plot violent espionage and still hope for dessert.”

Has anyone else read this book or plans to? What did you all think of it? I’d love to read your thoughts on this, so feel free to share in the comment section below <3