“I am the monster and the monster is me.” Nikolai Lanstov
This amazing novel is the first of two in the Nikolai Lanstov Duology, and was one thrilling ride of a read.
Synopsis:
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.
My favorite character in this Novel:
Zoya Nazyalensky
Zoya’s character is so fascinating.
Bardugo doesn’t shy away from the more painful realities of those who have been hurt and abused by the Darkling. And Zoya is one of them. Zoya was a weapon in the Darkling’s grip, a tool of vengeance, and a sop to his pride. She, like many others, was as clay in his hands, and he’d poisoned her faculties for trust and love until they were so tangled with hate and guilt and shame that she hardly knew one from the other.
Zoya survived her abuser, she’s come so far only to behold the most wretched thing: the Darkling’s followers, in their inexpiable ignorance–or perhaps worse, their cold indifference–have built a monument to his crimes, the crimes Zoya had suffered, and declared him a saintly soul. This isn’t a mere tragic backstory. Knock down the magical elements and there are real, important issues here, foremost among which is how we often reward violence with exultation instead of making sure the abusers’ names remain forgotten. “Who would speak for Liliyana, for Genya and Alina and Baghra if she did not? Who will speak for me?” Zoya asks.
It was also heartrending to see how Zoya begun to wield her cynicism and irony as shields to protect her softer feelings. The kinder said she was cruel. But others spoke of someone with only witchcraft in her veins and no warmth. The more you spend time inside her thoughts, you realize that the thing to which Zoya assigned the name of “rage”—and only rage—was not actually that. It was only the mask it wore, because fear was weakness, and Zoya had sworn to never again be weak.
This clever, illuminating contrast between the girl we meet—and not entirely warm up to—in The Grisha Trilogy, and the woman Zoya has become in the wake of tragedy, is deeply arresting.
“Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow. You are strong enough to survive the fall.”
Zoya also offers a very interesting counterpart to Nikolai’s character. Both of them kept their minds captive at the surface, only very rarely allowing it to sink into the terrifying and unknowable deep. But even when their innermost thoughts stayed hidden from each other, they still noticed the weight of the secrets the other carried, even if they didn’t know the shape of the secret itself. I loved their dynamics so much. How they became inseparable, like the lines of a couplet that would lose their grip on their meaning out of context. I love how they had this unspoken agreement to not bullshit each other, to never back-pedal or soften or sugarcoat.
In conclusion, Leigh Bardugo never ceases to amaze me. The Grishaverse is an wonderful world utterly, and extremely bewitching. It truly is one of the best novels I have read since the Harry Potter series. She has made this worl seem so real to me. I am in love, and cannot wait for the sequel to be available.
Crystal 