Name: Siege and Storm
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Square Fish
Date published: June 2017
Genre: Fiction, young adult, romance, fantasy, adventure
Pages: 435
Rating: 4/5
This review contains mild spoilers.
Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land. She finds starting new is not easy while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. She can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.
The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her--or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.
- From Goodreads.
Siege and Storm was a great continuation of the story started in Shadow and Bone. The worldbuilding continued to be fascinating to read, the world felt very real and it was easy to become immersed in it. I think Leigh Bardugo has done a great job of creating a world that I will continue to be excited to read stories about.
One thing I did not enjoy about the story was Alina and Mal's relationship. Alina often felt inadequate when she was with Mal, and seemed to believe she was not good enough for him. I could not really understand or root for their relationship when I felt like Alina always felt worse about herself when she was with him, and when he often slipped into bad behaviour and got angry with her for things that were not her fault, or were out of her control. He did have some good qualities and of course he was not a truly evil person, but I just could not enjoy their relationship when it seemed like she would be happier by herself or with someone else.
It also did not sit right with me that Mal did not like Alina's power. While it was good he did not want her to lose control or to become too greedy, it seemed like her power was just as much a part of her as any other part, and if he did not like it then he did not really love her. Using her power made her healthier and happier, and when he acted like it was a bad thing that she used it and enjoyed using it, it just made him seem envious and unsupportive and it did not help me like him. It made Alina physically unwell to deny that part of her, her powers, and when she accepted that part of herself and loved it, all Mal wanted was for it to be gone. He wanted her to go back to being the girl she was at the start, but she was not happy back then. She was good at being a leader and using her powers, but he wanted to take that away from her. I understood that he was struggling to find his place, but he could not seem to feel happy for her when she was happy, and it just made him seem too selfish. Alina often felt bad for how Mal felt at the palace, but she had gone to the palace to try and fix things and do good by leading the Grisha, and it seemed like he had never felt bad whenever she had felt out of place or like she did not belong. It just never seemed like their relationship was balanced or equal.
It just kept feeling like Mal and Alina were meant to go on different paths in life and like they were not meant to end up together. They argued so much and never seemed to come to an understanding. Ultimately, all this meant that I just could not love Mal like Alina apparently did, so I could not root for their relationship, and that was really the one thing in the book that fell flat for me.
However, I did enjoy reading Alina's relationships with other characters, the interactions and dialogue were written well, and I especially enjoyed the moments between her and Genya, her and Sturmhond, and her dynamic with the Darkling continued to be engaging and thrilling.
I enjoyed the way Alina's struggle with the dark was written, how she was sometimes overcome by her powers, how it was shown that she was affected by what had happened between her and the Darkling and what had happened on the Fold. I think it felt very real that she was not completely fine after everything that had happened to her so far and Leigh Bardugo wrote that in a very compelling way that made Alina feel very relatable and strong to get through everything that she did. I really think the author played well with the idea of Alina struggling with a slippery slope into darkness, how she could easily go the same way as the Darkling, descending slowly into the desire for power. But her struggle with that and her determination to fight against it was what showed her strength and good heart.
I really enjoyed the middle of the book, the political manoeuvres, Alina learning how to lead and work with people, and her discussions with Nikolai. I thought it was all very intriguing and very enjoyable to read. The ending was also very thrilling, incredible and epic, and left me eager to read Ruin and Rising.
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