Darkness never dies. 
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.

After the way Shadow and Bone ended, I honestly had no idea what to expect of its sequel. The story could have taken literally any direction from that point and turned out either very good or very bad. Or very mediocre.

Siege and Storm certainly starts with a bang—the action kicks in immediately, several new characters are introduced and some quite intriguing pieces of information are revealed. But somewhere around a third of the book it all just seemed to water-down, leaving us to Alina’s ramblings and the whole unnecessary love drama between her and Mal for the better part of the book. And while I loved the way Leigh Bardugo managed to slowly build up tension towards the end and kept me on the edge of my seat in anticipation of the final confrontation, I do feel like a too large chunk of the book has been wasted on basically nothing.

Something that actually pleasantly surprised me was the question of Alina slowly descending into madness which has been gradually introduced to us throughout the course of the book and which I was instantly intrigued by. I’m glad that Bardugo has finally decided to explore a darker side of her and give some more depth to her character. But even despite that, I have to admit that my opinion of her hasn’t changed much. Beneath it all she still seemed to remain that same shallow girl from the beginning of Shadow and Bone—too rash, immature, self-absorbed, and still overly obsessed with beauty and looks. And—well, let’s just say some of her actions really made me just want to hit my head against the wall or scream in frustration. As the Darkling himself nicely put it, she has “a bad habit of acting like a fool and calling it heroic.”

I was a bit taken aback and more than a little disappointed with the Darkling being basically nonexistent in this book and how less dynamic the story had been because of that. His story hadn’t come any closer to unraveling as well, in fact, I’d he say he’s become even more of an enigma during what little screen time he actually got. @Leigh Bardugo, why are you doing this to me??

Mal, on the other hand, only seemed to exist. Looking back, I honestly can’t recall him doing anything except fighting with Alina over this or that. I understand his point, I really do, and I appreciate how he loves Alina only for herself and not for her power, but somewhere towards the end of the book I simply stopped caring.

By far the best character in this series and the only one that made it truly worth reading was Nikolai, my precious smol bean. Honestly, I don’t know how I would have gotten through this book if it weren’t for him. Besides being the perfect boyfriend material (😊), he was a truly fascinating character—a prince, second in line for Ravka’s throne, witty, smart and just a tad bit crazy, possibly a bastard and he knows it, who goes off to study shipbuilding and gunnery and ends up doing more damage to Ravka’s enemies as a privateer than the whole Ravkan army together probably did in years. Yes, he is also ambitious, manipulative and more than a little arrogan, but beneath it all he truly seems to care for Ravka and his people and wants what’s the best for them, no matter what it might cost him. And did I mention that he is the ultimate cinnamon roll and needs to be protected at all costs UWU

Something I still cannot wrap my mind around, though, is how the hell Bardugo managed to create such an incredibly well-rounded side character like Nikolai, but did such a poor job with Alina. I can only hope that changes in Ruin and Rising and that Alina finally manages to get a grip on herself.

Apart from my baby Nikolai, I think the only thing that saved this book for me and earned it a 3 star rating was Leigh Bardugo’s beautiful writing style. Dynamic fight scenes, light humor and simple yet picturesque descriptions made this book an entertaining, easy read. The ending itself was quite promising as well, although just a tad bit overdramatic, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of the trilogy to carry on in a similar way.