This means, in a partly unfortunately exertion of balance, that the big selling point of the Poly-ship is actually a little downgraded in my opinion. It's fairly well constructed in terms of establishing both emotional attachment and physical attraction between the trio, but I still read it much more as a falling-together of desperate hearts rather than a true-love romance with 3 participants instead of the usual 2.
            That said, however, successful marriages, and what I consider to be genuine love, is not comprised of the fairytale, shippy, true-love magic that most YA romances peddle. The way healthy love works is that individuals proactively decide to love each other and continuously chose to make it work. Active discussions, healthy communication of wants and needs, self-reliance despite dyad (or triad, quad, etc) integration (which applies to non-romantic bonds, such and Family and Friend sets and is also known as "we thinking", ie, 'we're going to the beach this summer')... all of that is present in this novel and necessary to a truly viable healthy relationship. And yet, the whole 'we are literally the only people in the entire world who treat each other like humans' thing is NOT a healthy motivation nor is it a convincingly romantic motivation for a love match pairing...
              I'm curious to see how it all works out in the sequel, particularly as... well... Spoilers.
           Overall, this is a brutal, but gloriously well-depicted world with characters in varied states of mental collapse that reflect genuine psychology in both range and severity. The body-count is high, the brutality is significant, the presence of consent is glaringly absent in a number of circumstances, and the positive influences are non-existent, but there's not explicit sex, no drugs, alcohol abuse depicted as a disease, and the non-con elements are never excused or apologized for. It's not a book for every 13-year-old, but honestly I think it suits a vast majority of them.
           Parental discretion IS advised, but I strongly recommend that this novel be seriously considered as a viable  option for any teen reader!

               This story also goes into spycraft with excellent accuracy in regards to how it affects the psychologies of everyone involved, as well as looking at how effective / ineffective it can be (and how a lot of how things pan out, whether for better or worse, is usually less to do with intentional action and more to do with relentless effort to keep the story spinning). It really got into the nitty gritty of it with exceptional clarity being given to the moral quandaries that come hand in hand with doing bad things for a good cause.
                The one thing that DID bother me a little is almost negligible: it was simply how they kept referring to Nikolai as 'Highness'. It's a thing I had noticed in King of Scars, but he was such a new king I felt it was ignorable, but by this point he should be solidly established as a 'Majesty'... Though I have seen it translated as such in some Russian lit, so maybe it's a Russian thing I'm not familiar with (I has simply assumed that the address translated strangely). Idk.
                 Anyway, plot-wise, the story developed with some EXCELLENT twists and turns that I was not expecting and yet fit within the narrative as part of a perfectly natural evolution. This one improved upon King of Scars by validating some of the boring bits in that novel without laboriously lingering over the rationales, it simply employed the results of what happened then into a present moment (with just enough recap to keep a reader up to speed, but not so much that the time it took to read the pervious installment felt wasted).
               The character development was also top notch. The admissions that anger comes from fear, that guilt is just a need for control, and that love and friendship are not things that can be affected by rationality or attempted decision-making are all wonderful and expose themselves within each and every character individually. Every character has a distinct arc of development that carries them through the motions of the main plot as a slap-dash combination of their individual stories. Zoya's development, in particular, was fantastic. I never really liked her until this one. I stopped disliking her in King of Scars but WOW did she blossom into someone awesome here (I think she's now in my top 3 of character faves for the whole series).
               Honestly, Zoya's development in this is just so far beyond exceptional that it truly makes this book a marvel. I know that it's a bit unfair to judge books on a comparative basis, but I just have to point out that Zoya's handling in this book is about 50 billion times more elegant and well-crafted than Nesta's handling in A Court of Silver Flames (which is a review I'll have up in full next week). Zoya and Nesta are both extremely angry characters with razor sharp edges and anger issues that bubble up to cover feelings of inadequacy and a soul-deep fear of pain and loss. They're both grieving lives they used to know, and suffering through a crude and unpleasant adjustment to living with trauma. From their similiar circumstances, they require similar methods to help them heal. Nesta's story follows a perfect guideline of How NOT to Handle a Person with PTSD, and is frankly 700 pages of dangerously irresponsible drivel (that doesn't work) and it wraps up in a last 200 pages with a shorthand version of what happened to help Zoya start to heal scrunched up awkwardly at the end like Maas got yelled at by a psychologist. Meanwhile Zoya's journey takes place at an even-keeled pace across the entire (much more succinct novel) and it starts right from the beginning with addressing what is healthy vs unhealthy in terms of coping mechanisms -- all while dealing with protagonists who are younger (and therefore more entitled to handle things poorly). Bargudo does an EXCELLENT job and that fact has certainly catapulted this book into my top 25 of all time!
              Over all, it was extremely well done. I will say that it was not quite life-changing, which several of Bardugo's books have been, but it was definitely one for the top 25 I've read ever, and top 10 for having read in the last decade (or rather it's the one to kick off the new list for this new decade). I am VERY excited about where this is going to lead the Grisha Verse as the series continues to develop!

                  ​Still, I do absolutely LOVE this one and highly recommend it to all audiences!

              Only August had any actual problems to deal with but the bulk of the narrative was focused on the two girls who had no real problems whatsoever. And the ending resolved with August's dad swooping into to fix things for him, and his joining the girls in realizing that none of them had any real problems to begin with... The inevitable thing was simply the obvious arrangement that ensured that none of them ever had to deal with any repercussions of a problem that was never really significant anyway.

             As a thought experiment, it was kind of neat.

            As a story? It was pretty lame.

​            I'd only ever recommend it as a low-stakes beach-read / distraction type endeavor with which to while away an afternoon.