Ruin and Rising

I might be feeling particularly tender at the moment, but the ending of this story struck me. Everything about it, in fact. People waving the banners of Ravka as they celebrate the destruction of the Fold. Mal and Alina's little life in the epilogue. And their grief - of their losses, but also of who they were up to that point. Of living on while something is gone within them, but still finding meaning in their future.

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that I feel this way, as this is a tender book. Which is quite something for a 420 page final installment in a fantasy adventure trilogy. There's battles and action sequences, of course, but they're largely tedious and uninteresting. There's a lot of travelling from one location to the next that made it difficult for me to stay focused. But the meat of the story is between Alina and Mal, as well as their friends (in some ways I feel like this was a precursor to the motley crew of Six of Crows, not as well developed or established, but a prototype nonetheless). There's also a smidge of something spiritual - Bardugo goes into some really fascinating gray areas with her magic system, which I thought was really impressive and creative.

Bardugo's writing is a lot richer here as well. Far more than Shadow and Bone, and especially Siege and Storm, this is an atmospheric, immersive book that takes time to notice the people in the background - the servants, the soldiers, children and commoners. She does a lot more to build a more intricate tapestry of Ravka - from its religious zealots, to its street peddlers. These asides detailing the places they pass through and people they encounter does a little bit to show Alina's change in priorities, though in some ways I felt like it was just padding out the page count. The conclusion - from the reveal about the amplifiers, to the final confrontation with the Darkling - I think was all very well done and well-earned.

This is a hard book to rate. Past the midpoint, it became too tedious to read for me to rate it more than three stars, but the ending is good. It's too bad this series came to be at the height of YA trilogy madness, because three books seems just really cumbersome for this story, and it makes sense that both follow-up stories in this world are duologies. I'm glad that Alina got her happy ending though - maybe not a fairytale one, and not even the “good for her” ending that I found myself craving at the end of the second book, but one that is real and meaningful. I've been thinking a lot about what it takes to be happy in a painful world, and I think Bardugo nailed it here.

A partner who loves you, work that involves helping and raising people up, and a rich benefactor. I think that pretty much sums it up.