What even was that: my review on Rule of Wolves
>!I mostly talk about the last book but also the duology as a whole.!<
>!It had so much potential. King of Scars was already so messy for me, breaking literally the whole system established in the first trilogy and resurrecting the Darkling. But the personal endings for the characters were disastrous.!<
>!Nina's ending is treated as happy because she is with Hanne, but the Nina we know would never do that- go against everything she is, leave and never return to her homeland for which she always fought for, leave all her friends behind along with her identity and appearence. It's like her personal worst nightmare. Her only consolation being Hanne, their relationship honestly happening way too early considering Nina was barely done mourning Matthias (not that I didn't enjoy their love story).!<
>!Zoya... Please. I love her but she would be an awful queen for Ravka. Not to mention that fact that she only gets away with it because Leigh decided to make her ultra OP and no one would dare go against her in fear that she'd turn into a dragon and stomp them to death. !<
>!Nikolai. I find it incomprehensible how after fighting with tooth and nail for the throne he would just throw it all out the window. He has gotten himself out of so many more tangled situations with his wit but conveniently gives up on this one and concludes that the only way forward was with Zoya as queen. His characteristic ambition just vanishes to give Zoya her cheap feminist ending. I love books that empower women, but it's just so dumb and out of place in this case. Literally nobody wanted her to be queen, not even Zoya wanted to be queen. !<
>!I really liked and felt myself relate to Hanne. But it could have been so much better, especially her ending in the same sense as Nina. It's such a missed opportunity that Leigh didn't write Brum discovering Hanne was grisha, his own daughter being what he dedicated his whole life to destroying. That conflict would have been phenomenal, but it didn't happen.!<
>!There's two things that are to me just so obvious about the author and this duology:!<
>!1- The woke agenda she desperately shoves into the books. I love reading queer stories, it's just so terrible the way she tries to do it. It's so blatantly obvious how she wants to tick the "wokeboxes" after she got criticized for the lack of representation in Shadow and Bone.!<
>!2- She wrote this purely in an attempt to wring the interest of fans from her previous books to get money, giving us very half-baked and poor content that still needed a lot of work. !<
>!She wants to do so many things in this book taht she doesn't achieve anything but disappointment. I don't need Mayu's POV, nor the Darkling's, I honestly couldn't care less with how much other stuff is happening that doesn't get enough development. And what happened with Yuri? The Darkling ends up in eternal suffering while he has to suffer inside of him forever. It is so clear how suddenly at some point in the book that storyline is dropped because it's no longer convenient, completely forgotten by the plot. And David's death. Please. It was so unnecessary, meaningless and it practically had no impact. It was wrote purely to cause shock in a very dirty and cheap way to tick off the "death that leaves readers sad" checkbox.!<
>!Oh, how I hate the Darkling. It's not even only about opinion anymore, the character was written so horribly in these books. It's like Leigh wrote a cartoon villain but worse and more elaborate in his theatrics and actions. Him along with Alina and Mal appeared as pure fan service, and a bad one at that. It was so unnecessary to revive him, one of the worst writing decisions in my opinion. The story of Alina, Mal and the Darkling was done, what was written here just ruins what was supposed to have ended already. Leigh tries to make some more worldbuilding with Shu Han, which isn't actually bad, but with the so many things going on in this book it just doesn't fit (+ the Crows fan service. I liked it, of course, but it just keeps on taking up more room in this crowded book).!<
>!This duology is meant to be about Nikolai's reign in Ravka, but it is not. I would say it feels more like Zoya & Co, the books. To finish this long review, what I did like was reading about Nikolai's struggles and Nina's plotline, except for its end. I cannot emphasize enough how her ending is one of the most catastrophically bad things about this book, if not the worst one, personally. I give Rule of Wolves 1.5 stars. !<
tldr:
>!if you haven't read the king of Scars duology and loved Leigh's other books, please dont do this to yourself. It messes up everything monumentally on itself and on her previous series to sell more books.!<