Rule of Wolves Book Review

Please note, this review is SPOILER FREE for Rule of Wolves, but will include spoilers for King of Scars, as well as Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom, and the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I know a lot of people are reading the Grishaverse books for the first time with the TV series, so I wanted to be clear!

From Goodreads:

The Demon King. As Fjerda’s massive army prepares to invade, Nikolai Lantsov will summon every bit of his ingenuity and charm—and even the monster within—to win this fight. But a dark threat looms that cannot be defeated by a young king’s gift for the impossible.

The Stormwitch. Zoya Nazyalensky has lost too much to war. She saw her mentor die and her worst enemy resurrected, and she refuses to bury another friend. Now duty demands she embrace her powers to become the weapon her country needs. No matter the cost.

The Queen of Mourning. Deep undercover, Nina Zenik risks discovery and death as she wages war on Fjerda from inside its capital. But her desire for revenge may cost her country its chance at freedom and Nina the chance to heal her grieving heart.

King. General. Spy. Together they must find a way to forge a future in the darkness. Or watch a nation fall.

Hello everyone,

As a massive Leigh Bardugo fan, I pre-ordered this book a few months ago. However, I wasn’t really feeling it in the same way that I was hyped for the other series. Part of that was because, while I enjoyed King of Scars, it was a bit more magic-theory heavy than the other books in the Grishaverse, and I couldn’t really remember all that much about it. So in preparation for Rule of Wolves, I thought I’d try and re-read King of Scars to get excited for the new release. And I actually really enjoyed it the second time around, much more so than the first time. And so, by the time I finally picked up Rule of Wolves, I was ready to come to the end of the series.

And omg, it was brilliant.

This book was literally everything fangirl me wanted to see, along with the big dashes of angst I’ve come to expect from a Leigh Bardugo book. Most of this book was spent with me reading with my hands in front of my eyes, not sure if I wanted to continue on or not because I didn’t want to turn the page and find that one of my favourites had died or something.

I think, one of the absolute best things about this book was the return of certain characters. I won’t name them, just because I don’t want to ruin the surprise for people, but Leigh really brought all of her Grishaverse books together with this one and I LOVED IT. Every single time a character returned, I made a weird high-pitched noise of celebration. It was a bit like that scene in Avengers: Endgame where all of the heroes reunited and everyone in the cinema was crying and cheering to see their favourite heroes step through the portals. Not everyone comes back, so I guess I can say that much about it, but there’s a good mix of characters who I was absolutely delighted to see. And it was extra cute, because there were some characters who didn’t really get closure in previous series, and so it was nice to see their stories come to a full ending.

As with any multi-POV story, there are always voices or narratives that you’re a bit less interested in, or ones where the plot maybe plods along a little bit slower than with the others. For me, this was actually Nikolai, at least for chunks of the books (and tbf in others, he was the most entertaining). Not because I didn’t enjoy his chapters (I did!) but because he kept coming in while the other characters, Nina and Zoya, were going through a lot of fast-paced stuff, and I wanted to hurry up and check back with them again. But really, compared with a lot of multi-POV books I’ve read, I think Bardugo did a good job of balancing the voices. It’s quite easy to distinguish the voices from one another, even without the chapter headings announcing which character’s head you’re in. And for the most part, the narratives are all very interesting and immersive. It’s just that, naturally, there are moments when you’re desperate to get back to one character and so you’re tearing through the scenes between them to return to their narrative.

Overall, I’d give Rule of Wolves:

I absolutely loved seeing returning faces and overall, I thought the world was wonderful, the plot was superb, and everything about it was really just *chef’s kiss*. I’m obviously sad that this is the end of the Grishaverse but it’s the best send off for the books that I could’ve hoped for.

Has anyone else read this book already or plans to? What do you all think of it? Let me know in the comment section down below <3