I always envisioned her as the mean girl, but we see her mature over the years, and begin to understand her motivation and drive. Nikolai’s journey felt a bit lost at times, and lacking in the humor we all associate with the King of Ravka. I found myself skimming her storyline to get back to the others. I loved Nina in Six of Crows, but her chapters were…boring. But the book’s depiction of grief and suffering is so powerful as we deal with the fallout from the previous series, we see each character handle their loss in a unique manner as they continue to battle prejudice and evil. And I will never apologize for my love for him. And can we talk for a second about all the Darkling bashing in this book?! I was not a fan. There was something so special about the previous books the camaraderie between the characters, the shenanigans of the Crows, THE DARKLING. It wasn’t a bad book I think I just expected more from Bardugo. Overall, I was honestly kind of disappointed by this book. King of Scars follows three characters from the Grishaverse: Nikolai, the golden boy of Ravka, still haunted by the monster within Zoya, a powerful Grisha fighting for her country, both internally and externally and Nina, a heartrender determined to avenge the death of her lover. We pretend the pain isn’t there, that we are made of scars instead of wounds.” “Most of us can hide our greatest hurts and longings.

If you haven’t already, you should definitely read the Shadow and Bone trilogy and Six of Crows duology before you pick up this one! I knew I wanted to read King of Scars before the new Netflix series comes out on April 23, so I picked this up during my month of fantasy, march magic.

The king of scars series