Favorite Quote

“Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you’ll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won’t matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.” -page 136

Thoughts

I’m not going to lie… I had high hopes for this novel. I heard nothing but fantastic things and I loved Leigh’s Grisha trilogy. However, I felt like this book had an incredibly slow beginning. It might have been a lot of world building but I found it to be incredibly dull. A part of me almost wanted to DNF the book, but I pushed through because of how many people love it. And push through I did.

I didn’t find myself enjoying the characters as much as everyone else. I didn’t think they were memorable (but boy did that change in Crooked Kingdom. The character development in the book SKY ROCKETED).  I did enjoy the characters in the Grisha trilogy way more, but I feel like the characters in this book have more depth to them. You get more of their past and why the characters are the way they are. I really appreciated that. Seeing the characters go through their development in Crooked Kingdom was mind-boggling. I’m still blown away… but I’m getting off topic.

Kaz and Matthais were both douchebags. I never did like Matthias. Ever. But I did fall in love with Kaz. He’s so broken and I like that. Not that he’s broken or anything but because him being broken makes him seem human. It’s realistic and raw and sad and brilliant. I also loved Jesper and Wylan’s constantly mocking and sarcasm. I think Jesper was one of my favorite characters. Out of all the shit that kept going on, Jesper always made the brutal stuff seem not so bad with his humor. Does that make sense? I feel like I’m just rambling.

Personally, I don’t feel like this book felt like it was part of the Grisha world. That part was a disappointment simply because I wanted more Grisha after finishing the trilogy. That being said, I truly don’t believe this book really spoils anything if you were to read the Grisha trilogy. The only thing that the book spoils is the ending of the books. But that just seemed obvious.

I also wish I knew how violent this book was before going in. Some parts were just graphic and grotesque. So fair warning if you want to read this book but have a light stomach. Some part of the story made me want to vomit because I was disgusted.

I feel like the heist seemed too…. easy? I’m not going to say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything but I just feel like everything about the heist came too easy and went too easy and was just easy, easy, easy. Lastly, the ending was pretty predictable. I don’t know why, but I totes saw it coming. Did you?

Have you read this? Did you like it? Hate it? Have you read Crooked Kingdom? Did you like that better? I sure did.