Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo ~Thoughts and feels on the sequel

                Hey everyone!  Welcome back.  I hope you all are not struggling today as much as I am.  A week off from work is glorious but returning not so much. Thankfully it's a short week I come back to.  Today I'm going to talk about book two in the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm.  I reviewed book one Shadow and Bone here a few weeks back and with Six of Crows coming out this month I wanted to finish up my reviews for this trilogy that I enjoyed so much.  This being a sequel there will be some spoilers from the first book as this takes place in the aftermath.

Rating: 5 Flying Ships

                The world has changed for Alina and Mal.  They went from orphan friends to military personal.  From there Alina became a Grisha, the most powerful and only of her kind with the solid power of tearing about the nasty fold.  That is until all the lies and half truths show Alina she may have trusted the wrong people.  Now escaped from the Darkling and leaving him and his ship full of Grisha ready to use her for dead they are on the run.  Hunted across the True Sea.  They try to make a new life in a new place but they can't outrun their destiny.  The Darkling didn't die in the fold as they had hopped but instead emerged with a new power.  Alina and Mal return to their abandoned home of Ravka and gather forces to try and fight for their home.  Things are as they seem as Alina continues to build her power and slips further from Mal.  She is forced to choose between her country, her power, and her love or risk it all.

                I read the trilogy back to back and I had some expectations for this one.  Based on the last story I had an idea on how things would be paced and what would happen and boy was I wrong.  This one started out with a bang and was just flying right along.  When they realize they can no longer run from their problems Alina and Mal decide to search for the other amplifiers of legend.  They get right on that second one much faster than expected. 

                But along the journey we meet some amazing new characters that I just adored.  The most prominent being Nikolai.  He was just hilarious.  He reminded me a bit of Captain Jack Sparrow with his witty lines and comments.  He was just adorable.  I liked him as a character so much but as a possible love interest he never really worked for me personally.  Though I did love every page he was on because his character almost always made me laugh.  We also meet Tamar and other who really added to the eclectic cast of characters including returning characters including Genya and Zoya.  Now I was never a fan of Zoya, she was an evil bitch from word one.  But Genya, I just loved her for the majority of book one then I felt horribly betrayed and in Siege and Storm my conflicted feelings for her swayed back and forth but in the end I love her. 

                There is a lot of drama and things happening in this one.  I will say one small thing was that the pacing seemed a bit back and forth, super fast and full of action then followed up with longer more character driven scenes, which I was okay with but it went back and forth at times.  There was some unnecessary drama between some of the characters, but then again when do characters ever actually talk about their issues head on?  No they never do and it causes issues that turn into so much more.  But I was okay with this and I could see it from different sides and while I was shouting "GO TALK IT OUT!" at the book while reading I was also able to reason away the behavior.  There is a war after all, personal drama seems like it should be put aside for that. 

                Overall I really liked the story and loved learning more about the world.  This world of the Grisha is so beautifully built up and the ending was just 'on point.'  I loved the part there in the end.  It made me put it on my shelf and immediately pick up the next and final book.  I had to know more and that to me is a successful sequel.  What did you think of the sequel?  Who was your favorite character to read about?  Mine was Nikolai, he just stole all his scenes.  Even when I wanted to smack him.  Comments are love.  Until next time.