Well, well, well. Something about Leigh Bardugo + tears + family road trips that seems to be a winning combo. When I finished up Crooked Kingdom back in November of last year, my family and I were on our way to Mount Hermon, and boy oh boy when I tell you I CRIED as we were passing mountains and hills on all sides because… WELL. Let’s not revisit that pain at this moment. Anyway, I finished up the Grishaverse trilogy as we drove up to the beach just a few short weeks ago, and yes, there were MORE TEARS. Let’s get into my musings, shall we?
*SPOILERS ABOUND, SO, BEWARE*
Also, gonna try and keep these thoughts to a minimum after my recent behemoth of a Musings post lolol.
Overall
I am: in love. The Grishaverse trilogy wasn’t a let down at all; I am in love with Aleks—the Darkling, heheheh *cue weak laughter and being weak at the knees and weakness everywhere* Also Nikolai because um, excuse me, what a MAN and a half he is!!?!?!! Obsessed. Can’t wait for the Netflix series. So. Many. Feelings. Tears. Tears everywhere.
Shadow and Bone
Even though I purchased this right before quarantine kicked in, I waited and waited to read book one because I knew that, more than likely, I was going to speed through it, and I wanted to have books two and three with me before I did that. So, I started this read on May 31st, and as I also started my reread of The Silmarillion on the same day (and subsequently got really into it and focused most of my reading time on it), and still didn’t purchase 2 & 3 until later in June, I took it slow. But trust me, that was DIFFICULT.
I got into the story, characters, and rhythm pretty fast, and I was obsessed with everything about midway through. Annotations started towards the end and were generally focused on the Darkling’s reactions after the dun-dun-DUN *BETRAYAL*. At one point, regarding his ~dark~ (lol) turn, I wrote in the margins, “I refuse to believe it.” HAHA. More to come on my adoration of him, later.
Favourite Quotes (there are a lot, but again, we trying to keep this shorter and sweeter)
The woods were silent in their grief.
after the Stag palaver — this is just such pretty personification, love that
That’s never what I intended, Alina.
the Darkling — excuse me, I am deceased
Siege and Storm
I loved that early, open discussion on redemption between Alina and the Darkling. It hurt-ED, but I loved it. I SPED through this book and the next. Annotations were few and very far in between. Way less than Shadow and Bone, and I only started annotating towards the end of that read.
The building climax for the overarching arc of the three books is just exquisite, and quality tension abounds on each page. I was getting more and more ~ e m o t i o n a l ~ as I progressed. THAT ENDING. I finished this book, took some time to lay there on my bed and PROCESS what just happened (which I had to do a fair few times during my read through of each book), and then immediately started in on Ruin and Rising.
Not even going to attempt to narrow down quotes from this one. Too many. And they’re all PAIN anyway.
Ruin and Rising
DEVOURED the last read of the Grishaverse trilogy. Quite possibly quicker than I read S&S. This is where we come to me crying in the back seat of our minivan on the way to Pismo lolol. I wrote PAGES UPON PAGES of my thoughts immediately after, in my journal, during the reading hangover. Emotional pages, emotional words. I was well and truly DED. ded. dEd. Will now share excerpts from that entry…
… I am sticking to my firm belief that Aleksander L O V E D Alina. He fell in love with her. That explained his rage and desire being all rolled into one. I think that her unknowing cHaRm, character, and singularity drew him in and possibly changed his intentions (re: the Fold). When she left him after Baghra’s warning, he was truthfully torn, heartbroken, and bEtRaYeD. He felt that, deeply, because he had fallen for her.
All of that reinstated his former desires, seven times worse.
Leigh makes it really hard to root for just one particular ship. I usually always like to root for the love interest that was the childhood friend, the one with the most history and fidelity to the MC, but I continued to be ALL OVER THE PLACE with ALEKSANDER and NIKOLAI. I actually would have had no real problems with her ending up with any of the three.
In any case, Mal and Alina were destined for one another, and every one of their endings was beautiful; the epilogue was sweeter still.
Aleksander was just a broken boy who wanted unconditional, abiding love. And he didn’t get it. 🙁 Of course it doesn’t excuse any of his horrific actions, but it explains a lot …
Favourite Quote (there were a lot more, truthfully, but this one is just perfect)
They lived an ordinary life, full of ordinary things—if love can ever be called that.
excuse me whilst i sob
just made a pinterest board for all things grishaverse, if you wanna check that out hehe :’)
So.
That was a lot, but also not as much as I could have said. I’m really trying to keep myself CONCISE over here :’) Have you read the Grishaverse trilogy?? What were your thoughts?? Is it better/worse than the Six of Crows duology? Who is your favourite character and why?? I would L O V E to hear hehe (: