After Nikolai failed to rid himself of the beast within, he travels back to Ravka to do everything he can to save his country with the help of his friends. War is coming and he needs allies and resources. The Darkling’s reappearance has complicated things, but Nikolai will sacrifice himself on the front lines of the battle field before he lets anything happen to his beloved country.

I probably should have quit reading this book. If I was like my sister, or my grandmother, I would have flipped to the last couple of pages to see how it ended and called it good. I could have read a summary online. But I knew I’d feel like a failure if I didn’t just power through and read the book. I read all the other books in the Grishaverse! And you know Nikolai is my favorite character so I couldn’t live the rest of my life wondering what became of him. But I have to admit that I pretty much suffered through this entire book.  It was a chore to read. The main motivation I had to finally finish it was the fact that my Libby copy was due… and if that’s the only reason you’re reading a book, you know that’s sad.

Here’s why I struggled to read Rule of Wolves:

1. King of Scars ended on a cliffhanger but we didn’t address that cliffhanger until we were over 100 pages into this story. Even then, that cliffhanger was a minor part of the story.

2. We read from the point of view of multiple characters (up to 6) that aren’t all in the same place. By the time you get into what one character is doing, you finish the chapter only to have to start over again with another character. It almost felt like starting a new book every chapter.

3. Similar to King of Scars, I really hated Nina’s chapters. I didn’t care one bit about what she was doing.

4. There was so much going on, and yes, it kind of all fit together in the end, but it was so long winded and spread out that it wasn’t keeping me interested.

Overall, I feel like this duology was a little weak. As much as I love Nikolai, Rule of Wolves was a miss for me.