Ruin and Rising is Leigh Bardugo's third book featuring main characters Mal and Alina, and is the conclusion to the Grisha Trilogy. I've reviewed the first book, Shadow and Bone, here and the second, Siege and Storm, here. I loved the first book, and was excited by the potential that the series showed as an interesting and innovative story. But when Siege and Storm came around, I was frustrated by the fact that the romance line of the story between Mal and Alina seemed to be the main plot focus. I hoped that this turn of events was due to what I sometimes refer to as "Second Book Syndrome," in which the middle book of a trilogy is treated as a kind of eye of the hurricane, a lull between the excitement of the first book and the climactic finale of the third. And so it was with some trepidation that I approached Ruin and Rising.
Alina and her companions start out under the protection of the Apparat and his army of Sun Saint-worshipping refugees. But Alina knows that she's truly a prisoner there, especially since she's too far away from the sun in their underground hideout to use her powers. She and her friends need to reach the surface again to find Nikolai and track down the third and final amplifier in order to confront the Darkling and destroy the expanding Shadow Fold, reuniting Ravka. They face some resistance but eventually escape, and are soon on the run from the Darkling once again. Thankfully Nikolai has survived the fall of the capitol and has reverted to his Sturmhond ways in order to distract and harry the Darkling and his forces. But they'll need more than clever flying ships and dry commentary to stop the Darkling; they'll need the third of Morozova's amplifiers for Alina.
Once again, I felt like romance ate what would have been an otherwise interesting story. The ambiguous but all-consuming relationship between Mal and Alina continues to simmer, and Alina becomes a powerful leader only in appearances; really she just keeps pining after Mal and feeling lost and alone without him there to support and love her. Additionally, you have Nikolai making advances over which Alina seems to battle with herself, because she's developing feelings for the prince despite declaring her distaste for political marriages and simultaneously considering that it might be what her country truly needs of her..... *sigh* Sure, some indecision would be understandable in the situation because honestly, Alina has more important things on her plate than deciding for whom she has stronger feelings. Who has time to consider romantic entanglements when you have to worry about defeating a crazy shadow mage who wants to cover the world in darkness? But she just kind of plods along on her quest to defeat the Darkling while being consumed by her love life.
Even there though, you got another romantic interest popping up where in my opinion there just should not have been one: between Alina and the Darkling. I understand the pull of their similarities in magical strength, but the draw ends there. The nature of their relationship didn't warrant the kind of romantic tension that was built into all of their interactions, to the point where I just found myself annoyed whenever the two of them faced off, because I knew nothing was really going to happen: there was just going to be a lot of talking in the vein of "come to the Dark Side," veiled declarations of a twisted, lonely love, and then a daring escape on the part of Alina's party.
There were some details in the story that I liked: Genya's unapologetic but sincerely good nature, the curse that the Darkling unleashes on Nikolai during the battle at the mountain hideaway, and the explanation behind why Mal has his tracker intuition despite not being Grisha. But in my mind they didn't make up for the black hole of romance and some omissions in the plot that frustrated me. For example, we're never told why Morozova created the amplifiers in the first place. The idea in the first book that Alina gets the stag's power by showing it mercy is completely turned on its head, making the acquisition of her third amplifier in particular feel kind of hollow and anticlimactic, given the circumstances. It was too easy for her to do. By the time everything's over, Alina is reduced to the same wandering little soul she was in the beginning, completely dependent on Mal for support, encouragement, love and general well-being.
If you're a reading completionist with a driving need to finish every series that you begin, you can pick up your copy of Ruin and Rising at any local, independent bookstore. But if you don't feel particularly bad about leaving a series partially read, I recommend you read Shadow and Bone but let Mal and Alina sail off into the sunset at the end of that story.
I'm sad to say this one was a disappointment for me. I so adored the first book and still really liked the second one despite similar complaints of the romance getting too much "stage time." Still I'll be on the lookout for whatever she writes next.
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