![]() Book four of 2017 is complete! Title: Ruin and Rising Author: Leigh Bardugo Published: 2014 Genre: YA, Fantasy Pages: 370 Finish Date: 02.02.2017 Read If You Enjoy: Books by Sarah J Maas or Tamora Pierce, Harry Potter, magic, Game of Thrones without someone dying on every second page. A significant factor in my reading choices is my love for fairy tales. I collect fairy tales, folklore, fables, stories that have been told across the world for hundreds of years. There's something about fairy tales that form us as young people. They are filled with wonder, heroism, triumph over the dark... that is what this series is about. Defeating the darkness. I don't want to give much away about the story line itself, as this is the third book, so my focus with this will mostly be broader topics, Bardugo's writing and story-craft, the feelings and opinions evoked by the story. The other thing that really grasps me about the world this series is set in is the motivating cultures behind the writing. We are very familiar with English magic, with tales set somewhere in a vaguely UK based country. Lord Of The Rings, Magician, Harry Potter, Game Of Thrones. The cultures that make up this universe are based on Russia, Scandinavia and China. Magic here is called the Small Science and the people who practice it are the Grisha. Magic is believed to be a natural extension of the world around them but this is not widely acknowledged by folk who have no ability, which does seem to vary upon location. As you can imagine, this creates a lot of tension, fear, hostility and even persecution. Depends on where you are in the world as to whether you are welcomed, valued and needed, or dissected - there are safe places to be born with ability and there are places where it is a death sentence. You can safely assume that this makes up the basis of the problems faced by the main characters. By the time we reach book three our characters have been brought from low to high to low again and we are sure of their ability to endure but bewildered as to how they will face ongoing difficulty. They must find a way to overcome a smooth-tongued tyrant who has been lying to the world for decades and is really very, very good at it. He has a particular fondness of the main character Alina, but in a possessive way. He wants to own her so he can own her power, which is the only thing that threatens to bring down his grand chaotic plans. Her only hope lies in the folklore of her world - buried in fables are the secret to unlocking a greater power within herself in order to defeat the Darkling. This trilogy? Twist after twist, after twist. Leigh Bardugo manages to build up the world and bring it crashing down time after time without burning you to the point that you want to stop reading. Periods of sweetness and hope set against a background of great anguish. Camaraderie sprinkled with torture, mutilation and rescues. Some rescues are just in time. Some are not. The twist at the end of this book... I was reading at work just before I was about to start my shift and I nearly burst into tears. There was a single tear that slipped down my face as Bardugo ripped my heart out and crushed it in her hand. The worst part is, she foreshadowed this moment so thoroughly that I didn't ever believe it was really the only way to defeat The Darkling. I honestly thought they'd find another way and I couldn't have been more naive, but that's the way I like it. I don't find much enjoyment in dissecting a story and certainly not before I've finished the whole thing - guessing at how it's going to end is so boring, why would anyone do it!? Figure out the mystery, who-dunnit, detective novels and pat yourself on the back, but don't make me unravel a fantasy story. We all know the world is going to be better off by the time the story is finished, I just don't want to know how. So I'll leave the plot points unsaid and let you read if you will. I really enjoyed this series, and I enjoyed the other series Leigh Bardugo sets in the Grishaverse - Six of Crows, which occurs in one of the cities barely visited in the other books and is centered mostly around a magically unremarkable underbelly. It's filthy, gritty, enhanced by a sprinkling of Grisha intrigue, full of mobsters, swindlers, pleasure houses and brawling. I wish there was an actual genre based around this kind of fantasy because I WOULD READ EVERY BOOK THERE IS. Upcoming this year will be a review on my favorite book series, The Gentlemen Bastards which is based on a similar but way cooler premise, and involves no magic, just incredible cunning.
Verdict - 7 out of 10 It's decent YA, it's simple to get into and to understand, easy to read. Give it a go if you find real world fiction boring as hell but want to read more often.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorCailin Archives
September 2017
Categories
All
|