Siege and Storm

Title: Siege and Storm (The Grisha Trilogy #2)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: YA Fantasy
Pages: 432
Rating: 4 Stars
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Plagued with guilt for the lives she helped in taking on the fold, Alina finds herself sailing the true sea on an unknown ship. She begins to form friendships and alliances, but soon discovers that not everyone has been entirely truthful. All the while, she suffers from an uncontrollable connection to the Darkling, thanks to the collar she wears around her neck.

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With trilogies, I think many of us can agree that the second book tends to be the worst. I actually found that I liked Siege and Storm better than book one! My hopes are high for book three, and that it will be my favorite of all. I found this novel to be even more enjoyable, fast paced, and developed than Shadow and Bone. 

Of all the characters newly introduced in this novel, my favorite had to be Sturmhond, the captain of the ship Alina wakes up on. He was so witty, confident, snarky, and complex. I really enjoyed every interaction we got with his character. If you read my previous review of Shadow and Bone, you know that I really wasn't that big a fan of Mal. I have to say that that statement is still pretty much true. I liked him a little bit more, but honestly he's such an underdeveloped character. I feel like he has the potential to be so much more, for his friendship with Alina to become much stronger and prevalent- but he just kind of exists in the background and is annoying. I just can't bring myself to like him all that much. I am quite interested in the sibling duo we meet though- Tamar and Tolya. I feel like they'll have a bigger role in the next book.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It full of unexpected twists and awesome characters. I find the whole concept of the Grisha, and the political aspect to be very entertaining as well. I do love YA books with political conflict- and this is choke full of it. I feel like in lots of these books with two groups of people- the gifted and ungifted- the people with powers (so the Grisha in this trilogy) are automatically superior to the ungifted. However, it's not that black and white in this series. In some places, the Grisha are revered. In others, they are burned at the stake. Other than that, though, there's not much more for me to say. I would recommend this book to you if you're interested in continuing on with the series, and if you've yet to start it, what are you waiting for? It's a great high fantasy series that's fairly easy to get into and nicely paced!