I'm so... I should wait a while to write this review until I'm more coherent but I don't want to. I love this world. I love the magic and the culture and the Russian influences and maybe most of all the words.
I really enjoy the way Leigh Bardugo writes - the way she shapes her scenes and paces the novel and lets the story unfold and the way she expresses it all.
But mostly I love these characters. Alina and Mal and everything she does to them in this story is so... wonderful and awful and so unflinchingly authentic for their characters. Mal is easily a favorite and his flirting repartee with Alina is so awesome. But then there was also Strumhond and I maybe love him more than Mal - for his blasé arrogance and his charming flippancy and even for the shift in his character. Though it wasn't unexpected and I liked him a little better before than after, I still found him easy to love after.
I like that Bardugo deals with difficult choices in this book and that she takes these characters down this sort of inevitable road - even when it's hard and even when it hurts. This is a story of saints and heros and so there's no escaping the difficult paths. I like that even in the midst of the fantasy world she's grappling with larger, deeper themes. I can't wait to see what she has in store for the next book.
Until then, I'm afraid I might read this one another 3 or 4 times. It's the sort of book I want to read again right after I finish it because I want to live in this world with these characters a little longer.
REREAD: Every time I despise the distance between Alina and Mal. I cant stand what she does to him or what he does to himself. The book is always more fun when she and Mal and Nikolai are in it together and it isn’t just her introspection or angsting. And yet, I know how it ends and I know you can’t get there without going through here. I just wish Alina made slightly easier choices along the way.