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King of Scars (King of Scars, #1)

Leigh Bardugo

Start date: March 1, 2021

Finish date: March 31, 2021

Discussion: Book of the Month

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What Members Thought

Feb 18, 2019 Jenn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, fantasy, signed-copies, books-i-own, cover-love, read-in-2019, royalty, so-effing-excited, 4-star-reads, nail-biter

Me, when I finally had my hands on this book:
description

But sadly, that feeling didn't last the entire book. Coming off of the high of rereading the Six of Crows duology, I was raring to go with some Nikolai action! And while there were some harrowing scenes and some excitement, I felt that most of the book was slow and the pacing was off. Sadly, I chalk this up to one POV out of the bunch.

King of Scars shares POV's with Nikolai, Zoya, and Nina. Let's start with Nikolai. This poor man just wants to be a good King for Ravka and everything seems to want to get in the way. There's opposition popping up everywhere, there's the Apparat who always has something up his sleeve, there's the fact that he's unwed with no heirs, but worst of all, there's the darkness within him left behind from the Darkling. A darkness that seems to be spreading and may soon consume all that is Nikolai.

Then there's Zoya who has become Nikolai's right hand woman. She handles everything Nikolai doesn't want to - including helping manage the monster inside her king. Zoya grew the most for me. I went from not being a fan of her in the Grisha trilogy to loving her in this book. Her strength, both physically and emotionally, just kept going above and beyond what was needed of her. I think I may actually ship her with Nikolai which I never thought I would say.

Finally, there's Nina. And here lies most of my problems. Again, I didn't love her as much as everyone else did in SoC, but I started to like her on my reread. However, here, I felt that she dragged the book down pacing wise and story wise. It just seemed like every time they switched to her POV, the momentum that Bardugo had created just went away and it was just Nina being Nina and I've never been a fan of her inner monologue. It took until almost the end of the book for her story to be interesting and it honestly wasn't even because of her - it was the people she was surrounded with.

But I will say that the last few chapters definitely amped up the game. And even though I predicted what was going to happen, it still gave me chills and I'm interested in where Bardugo will take this with the next book. ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

Oct 09, 2021 MarytheBookLover rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, audio-challenge-2021

I enjoyed the book but was a bit bored halfway through. The book picked up towards the end and I am thinking of reading the second. I also felt Nikolai was a side character to Zoya. I enjoyed her story the most out of all the characters in this book. Although I do love Nikolai's wit and humor, Zoya is bada**. Overall the book was ok. Nothing I would run and tell the world to read as soon as possible. I do have the second in the series and will maybe listen to it at some point down the road. I gi ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 27, 2019 Tbirdplanstoread rated it really liked it

Shelves: signed, own-hard-back, z-2021-read

3/29/21: No change in rating. Getting ready for Rule of Wolves!!

3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 09, 2025 Susan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: discovery-bookshelf, owned-tbr

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book and by the 5 star rating I gave it obviously I loved it. Back in 2021 I soft DNF'd this book and never was interested in picking it up again. My daughter told me I had to read it and then I joined Trick or Treatathon on Discord and needed a book with claw marks. I wanted to get books I owned read and this was the perfect chance to do that.

It was so fun to have Nina, Zoya, Geneya and King Nikolai back together in a book as well as the the twins who a ...more

2 likes · Like · see review