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!

               It was alright, over all. It picked up significantly 2/3 through, and by the end I actually enjoyed the read. The first half at least was a slog of this was done better elsewhere and jeez these kids are annoying... None of the characters believes in the Empire, none of them believe in the Stories of the Tribes until well after they're proven true... There's no clash of culture because none of them actually HAVE a culture that they cling to... The most interesting character is a chick from the Tribes who shows up for one dance and one off-stage conversation and then disappears again, presumably to reappear with a more prominent role in the sequel... Honestly, I was very disappointed in this book, but it is nonetheless a decent read. I wouldn't recommend it, but I wouldn't caution firmly against it either.
               The main redeeming quality comes from realizing that it's not a story set in ancient Rome. It's a story set in an odd parallel world where the Taliban has Rome-like dominance of an ancient world facsimile...