Book Review: Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Book title: Siege and Storm (*Amazon affiliate link)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Young Adult fantasy
Published: June 4, 2013
386 pages
My rating: 4.5/5

“My life would be allegiance instead of love, fealty instead of friendship. I would weigh each decision, consider every action, trust no one. It would be life observed from a distance.”

The Sun Summoner Alina Starkov is on the run from the Darkling. But she and her best friend Mal can’t outrun her destiny for long. With the help of a notorious privateer, she returns to Ravka, determined to lead the Grisha army to a fight against Ravka’s enemies.

This was a weird read because on the one hand, this was better than Shadow and Bone, and at the same time it… wasn’t? Let me try to explain.

What I liked the best was the character development I had hoped would have happened in the first book. Alina is now more in control and not simply pushed around by other characters. In addition, there is political intrigue that is actually interesting between the heirs to the throne.

Then comes the bad. All boys (there’s two more in this book in addition to the previous book’s Mal and the Darkling) still fall for Alina, or at least want to marry her for their own gain. Then there are the inevitable relationship problems between Mal and Alina, because Mal is insecure and Alina refuses to tell him the truth of what’s happening to her. I wanted to root for their relationship, but it was really difficult when they both acted like idiots. As Nikolai says, “You know, for two people with a love eternal, you’re awfully insecure.”

As Alina grapples with her power, the book gets darker tones. That isn’t necessarily my favorite thing, but on the other hand, I wish the book had explored her darkness more. I know this is a young adult book, but I think the exploration of darker themes would have made this book more interesting. The novel shies away from going as dark as it could have.

And lastly, the pacing was off. The beginning was action-packed, but then the story stagnated to a very muddy middle where nothing happened except some relationship angst. The last forty pages were again action-packed and get bonus points for taking an unpredictable turn – I totally couldn’t see which direction the ending would take.

In short, this book has high tension, but between the beginning and the ending, nothing important happens. This book mostly felt like filler. Maybe the series would have worked better as a duology? We’ll see what I think after I read Ruin and Rising. Like Shadow and Storm, this book gets 4.5 stars from me.

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