Book Review: King of Scars (King of Scars, #1) by Leigh Bardugo

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So….welcome to my TED talk, where King of Scars BROKE THE HELL OUT OF ME. I wasn’t prepared for this, I just sat there and mentally screamed because the ending was so good. But HE DIDN’T CALL ME, HE DIDN’T WRITE ME A LETTER-NOTHING. HE JUST-whoo this might be a long-ass review, so let’s get into it by breaking it down (and also this is the only book I read this month because of school):

Nikolai Lantsov: Okay, the demon inside of him woke the hell up somehow, and he’s going around attacking animals, and don’t even know if he attacked a human. He’s scared that his future wife will be scared if she finds out if he still had the demon inside him. So he’s trying to be a really good king, trying to be caring, finding and stealing stuff from almost everyone and using it to his advantage, which is actually pretty damned good. One day, he and Zoya hears and meets with a man named Yuri, a follower of the Starless Saint (aka the Darkling aka Aleksander Morozova), who helped them find a ritual so Nikolai can get rid of the demon inside of him. They do, and they meet the three Sankts-Elizaveta, Juris and Grigori. They explained that they are stuck here because of the Darkling, and they can get rid of the demon inside him...or so they thought. Elizaveta betrayed everyone, killed the last two Sankts, just so she can bring back the Darkling. Sadly she died, but unfortunately the Darkling came back, and the demon is still in Nikolai’s body. Oy vey.

Zoya Nazyalensky: Zoya shined in this book. When I say this girl SHINED, this girl SHINED. Zoya is the Commander of the First and Second army, and she’s helping Nikolai get rid of the demon. At the same time, while he was training on calling the demon so he can get rid of it, Zoya trained with Sankt Juris, the Dragon, and when Elizaveta killed him, Zoya took his power, and I swear to god, I think this girl is gonna turn into a dragon. PLEASE LET HER TURN INTO A DRAGON, I BEG OF YOU, LEIGH, PLEASE LET ZOYA TURN INTO A DRAGON. And lemme tell ya, I think in Rule of Wolves she does, I feel it.

Nina Zenik: Nina Zenik is in Fjerda, trying to help Grisha escape from the druskelle, and also bury Matthas (RIP). She does meet a young woman named Hanne, who is Jarl Brum’s daughter (yikes). Oh and also Nina is a necromancer (I CALLED IT, FIGHT ME). She hears the cries of the dead, which lead her to a factory...where pregnant women are given jurda and is giving birth to multiple babies that are fathered by multiple druskelles/witch hunters/grisha hunters. Well Nina didn’t like that, so she came up with a plan to use Hanne and Leoni and Adrik to get the women and babies out before shit hit the fan (and it did). Also Matthas’s wolf, Trassel, found her, which was nice. After saving the women, Nina decided to stay in Fjerda so she can try and save all of the grisha there, which I hope she does in the next book, because I’m hoping for it.

I also loved the political intrigue in this story, and I did squeal when I saw Genya and David together again, and that Genya is doing well. I’m glad to see Tolya and Tamar too, and I’m sorry, but what happened to the Nikolai double, Isaak, was fucked up. I hope this war can be over soon or not, I don’t know, because Aleksander is there and I feel like he’s up to something bad and scary as hell and I’m gonna read Rule of Wolves to find out, so pray for me.

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