Order “Siege and Storm” HERE
Read An Excerpt HERE
Watch the Book Trailer HERE
Siege and Storm is the second of Leigh Bardugo's The Grisha Trilogy, following her wonderful debut Shadow and Bone. A middle book it may
be, but the plot drives forward without getting mired in final ending set-up.
Bardugo uses prologues and epilogues to great effect, tying the
novels together with a common structure and deftly managing the passage of time
without merely listing exposition. Then, right from chapter one, she ups the
stakes, making our villain more dangerous (and creepy, if still compelling) and
leaving our heroine Alina
dangerously lacking in power, but wondering whether the very act of wanting
more power at all is the first step down a slippery slope. There are some
interesting things going on with the dangers of charm and the burdens of
leadership as well, often seen through characters' biting sarcasm.
Siege and Storm gives us a few new major characters, one
of whom is every bit as compelling as the villain (no mean feat), and the
parallels and contrasts between them are really fascinating. No matter how far
they might have come, Bardugo is
able to keep in mind the different mindsets between those who grew up as
royalty or as peasants, which makes for some interesting tension. We also got
some really cool new technology in this book and some interesting integrations
between the Grisha “Small Science” and “mundane” technology.
There are a few
things that bothered me in this book. One character gets mutilated pretty severely
for no apparent reason—or rather, no plot reason; I get that it was supposed to
jerk Alina's heartstrings, but it
felt gimmicky to me. I was also bothered at how easily Alina, who was never particularly well-liked by most of the Grisha,
is able to shift long-standing traditions with almost no resentment or backlash
from the Grisha. The set-up was all there: Alina
worried about the changes, and about how far she could trust the Grisha, and
then all that set-up never became relevant. I think it's a missed opportunity,
and given Alina's understandable
paranoia, it doesn't seem like the sort of thing she'd just take in stride
without any follow-up commentary or thought.
Alina does deliberately miss the point a lot, and she's pretty
practiced at denial. She also spends a lot of time angsting and, while her life
is undeniably hard, it does get old. What particularly gets old is how often
she worries about the affections of her boyfriend, and vice versa. I realize
two people very in love can still be insecure, but about halfway through the
book I was starting to roll my eyes every time Alina started fretting over it, which tells me the emphasis was
laid on a little too thick.
Siege and Storm ends on a not-quite reassuring note,
having once again amped up the stakes and introduced more complications to an
already murky situation. I look forward to seeing how Leigh Bardugo resolves all these plot threads in book three, Ruin and Rising, next year.
12:00 AM | 
Posted by
Robert |
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1 comments:
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading the first book of this series, though had my issues with it (mostly in the serious lack of subtlety when it came to foreshadowing). I'm quite interested to see how the second book holds up in my mind. Hopefully I'll get the chance to read it soon. Great review!