King of Scars is a new duology by Leigh Bardugo that is based in the infamous "Grishaverse" and follows the events of her previous series/duology The Grisha Trilogy (Shadow and Bone, Seige and Storm, & Ruin and Rising) and Six of Crows (Six of Crows, & Crooked Kingdom). The book follows King Nikolai, who was previously given a demon inside of him and his journey through that. It also follows Nina, a Grisha given the task to save other Grisha - who are illegal, to safety.


I am so shook.

I binged read The Grisha Trilogy prior to reading this and I'm so happy I did because whoa, spoilers. For those who don't know, King of Scars takes place in the same world as Bardugo's other books and are a follow up to those series.

The only book from the Grisha world I didn't read was Crooked Kingdom and I regret it because this book spoils the events very harshly. (I'll get more into it later.)

Prior to reading King of Scars, I've read a lot of posts from people asking if they can read this book without reading the previous trilogy and duology and I would have to say no. Mainly because there's a lot of spoilers, but also because you might find it difficult to understand somethings that occur in this series; for example the ending of King of Scars and how that pertains to Nikolai and the demon that has been in his body for this long now.

One of the biggest spoilers, and I mean spoilers - so if you've read the title and are continuing to read, I've warned you, that has hit me was the death of Matthias. I loved Six of Crows so much, it's one of my favourite books of all time, heck, I even have a pillow of all the characters in Six of Crows. But I never ended up reading Crooked Kingdom, I don't know why, but I really wish I would've because Nina's grief isn't how I wanted to find out about Matthias' death..

Which, getting into that, Nina is one of my favourite characters that Leigh Bardugo has ever written. I was so excited about King of Scars, mainly because of Nina and Nikolai, and it was so heartbreaking to read Nina's grief and how difficult it was to let go of Matthias. Hell, it took her, what, days - maybe even weeks to bury Matthias because she not only wanted a perfect spot to bury him, but because she didn't want to let him go and have his voice stop in her head.

Nina's first couple of chapters seriously broke my heart and I wanted to give Nina the biggest hug ever.

I feel like Nina should have her own book because whenever I read Nina's chapters, I felt like I was reading a completely different novel - but in a good way, if that makes sense. Nina's plot in this book is a little different from everyone else's, and I loved reading her chapters. I looked forward to Nina's chapters, to be honest. I think they were the best written and the most intriguing and gripped me from page one.

I also love how she mentions not only Matthias, but the rest of the Six of Crows crew a lot! Especially when she talks about how much she misses Inej's guidance and what not. I was so happy with this addition to the novel. Like nothing has really changed in Nina's heart, besides the heartbreak.

As much as this series is called the "Nikolai Duology," it feels like it surrounded Zoya the most in this book. It's understandable how we're following Nikolai through this whole demon adventure and what not, but it felt more like Zoya helping Nikolai overcome this situation than Nikolai, himself overcoming this situation.

I also mentioned this on GoodReads while I was reading, but it seems like Zoya has the most chapters in this book and they all seemed pretty boring to me. Maybe because I'm not a huge fan of Zoya, but whenever I'd see a chapter was based on Zoya, I'd sigh and it would be really difficult for me to get through it. I did like her more near the end (still not my favourite character though, just saying) but I wish we had more chapters by Nikolai. I think the Zoya parts were what made some parts of this book a little slow for me.

I absolutely loved the little Nikolai backstory through this book though; how he adored his older brother and wanted to be like him, but realized he wasn't worth as much as his brother, so he tried to do other things to stand out. I loved this addition to getting to know Nikolai better and in a way, what shaped Nikolai to be himself now.

Like I said earlier, there were a lot of parts in this book where it was really slow and at the beginning, I really debated on DNFing (Did Not Finish) but I'm really happy I pulled through.

I noticed that by the time there were only 60 pages left, I was panicking because I had a lot of unanswered questions, and this area was a little foggy to me because although the beginning of the book was slow, the end all happened so fast and I kind of wish everything was distributed well, but I also kind of liked the way it played out because I forgot about the questions that weren't answered yet.

If I had DNF'd this book, it would have been an easy, 2-3 stars for me. But since I pulled through, it's definitely a solid 4, especially because of that ending!

I can't wait to read what Leigh Bardugo does with Nikolai and the rest of the group in the next book!

If you could have a side novel based on your favourite character, who would it be? Let me know in the comments or on my Instagram! I'd love to know!