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I received rule of wolves from Hachette in exchange for an honest review.

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Star Rating:

not only was rule of wolves better than expected, it was better than king of scars. for me, i don’t usually find the sequel to be anywhere near as good as the original. to say i was surprised is an understatement.

if you haven’t noticed, rule of wolves is bloody massive. yet i still managed to get through it in a couple of days. nothing felt like a drag, and i was constantly excited to see what would come next.

i felt the same with the six of crows duology. i found that the first book wasn’t as good as the sequel. i don’t know what leigh’s doing, but she’s doing it right.

so many things happened in rule of wolves, but i’ll try keep it simple and spoiler free.

first things first. the main characters. prior to starting king of scars, nikolai was hands down my favourite character. since reading rule of wolves, it breaks my heart to admit zoya is now my fav. no one can compare. she went through so much development from the start of shadow and bone, more than anyone else in the entire grishaverse. that being said, i still love nikolai. he’s precious and fun. the relationship between nikolai and zoya are another thing i wish to point out. i was surprised in king of scars, they seemed like such an unlikely duo. but i can’t help but feel like they compliment each other so well! they’re the best friends everyone wishes they had.

not to mention this series should totally have been named after zoya rather than nikolai.

another thing that i really liked was the surprise inclusion of certain characters. obviously i’m talking six of crows and shadow and bone characters. i liked that we got to see where they were in their lives since the end of their respective series. plus it was such a shock? some series drag it out by bringing in old characters. some series keep teasing the audience with mentions and no-shows. but rule of wolves did it perfectly.

so i’ll admit, there wasn’t much that i disliked. it was all way better than i’d expected. however one thing that bothered me was that you needed to have prior experience to read this series. (this is a negative point on the duology rather than this book in particular). i say whitney mentioned cassandra clare, and i couldn’t agree more. one thing i dislike about clare’s books is that you can’t just jump in and start wherever, and king of scars is 100% like that.

if you’ve seen the show or know roughly about things, you could probably start reading it, however there will be spoilers for the previous books. this is both a good and a bad. obviously fans want to continue with their fav characters, however it’s a lot of books for someone to catch up on if they only wanted to read these two and not the rest. i’ll admit, i had to catch up on six of crows, but it was a good series so i didn’t mind.

and the last point i’d like to make: that!! ending!!!

i heard somewhere that this is the end of it all, and after that ending i most certainly hope not. i need more.

thank you, leigh bardugo. thank you. you done us good.

19 Comments

  1. avatar
    Isla says:

    Great review, I really loved this book.

    1. avatar

      thank you, i’m glad you enjoyed the book.

  2. avatar

    I still need to continue Grisha trilogy, I have only read Shadow and Bone. I can’t wait to read next books and observe Zoya now that you have mentioned her. Amazing review!

    1. avatar

      ngl I didn’t like her much in the shadow and bone trilogy but she flourishes so much!

  3. avatar

    I can’t believe I haven’t started this series! So glad you loved this:-)

    1. avatar

      you should read it! definitely worth it!

  4. avatar

    Great review! Sounds like a fantastic read!

    1. avatar

      it was, thank you!

  5. avatar

    Great review! It sounds like a brilliant read.

    1. avatar

      thank you! and it was.

  6. avatar

    Geez how lucky to grab a review copy! I didn’t like KoS at all but was hoping this one would he better!

    1. avatar

      i felt that it was, however i’ve heard some people say the opposite – that they liked kos but not row.

  7. avatar

    Great review! I was hesitant about picking up this series but maybe I need to! I’ll have to keep an eye out for the first book! lol. It’s always surprising when a sequel is better than the first but really exciting!

    1. avatar

      i was pleasantly surprised! i hope you enjoy it as much as i did

  8. avatar
    atakefromtwocities says:

    so glad you enjoyed this more than KoS! sadly this duology wasn’t a hit for me but I’ll 5ever be picking up any and all Bardugo. – H

    1. avatar

      ugh i’m sorry it wasn’t for you! i’ve noticed it’s either hit or miss with majority of people. but yes, i’ll literally read anything bardugo writes.

  9. avatar

    THIS. Your review has articulated precisely everything I loved about this book. I was so frightened going into this book because I felt King of Scars to be underwhelming. ROW however had all of the elements of a fantastic fantasy series, I was never bored and the character development was out of this world. I couldn’t have thought out a better conclusion and I’m so happy this book lived up to its high expectations!

    1. avatar

      thank you!! i’m glad you enjoyed rule of wolves too! i honestly wish i could go back and read it again!

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