Tag Archives: the grisha trilogy

Bookish Wedding Inspiration: The Grisha Trilogy

*WARNING!* This post does contain spoilers for Ruin and Rising.

GT-inspiration3After finishing Ruin and Rising, I got pretty excited about doing a new bookish wedding inspiration post for it. And of course, since there is an actual wedding described in the epilogue, it made it both easier (I know what to look for!) and harder (limitations!) to gather pictures for this post.

The hard part was finding suitable attire for this bookish wedding inspiration. I wanted to draw from the book as much as possible and make it feel like this could be the wedding in the book, and yet, the setting of the book versus the world we live in can make this difficult. I tried various searches on different types of dresses and attire that could work for a slightly more casual wedding, and also focused mostly on the season of winter, because for some reason I think Alina and Mal’s wedding took place in the winter. So first, let me get some of those pictures out there, just in case you were curious what I found.

GT-winter-attireSources: red couplebride and groom with cap, cardigan over dress, groomsmen with sweaters, and blue bride with coat

I almost went with the coat over the dress in the top right corner as the look for Alina. After all…

The bride wore no kokochnik, no dress of gold.

So with that in mind, I figured she didn’t have the chance to properly go dress shopping. But guys, GUYS, I found the most amazingly perfect Grisha-looking wedding dress (at least in my opinion) that I think also fits well with modern sentiment. So with that it mind, I present…

Bridal Look

The Dress

Gt-bride-dress2When I saw this Temperly London dress, there was really no turning back. It may not fit the sentiment of the simple wedding Alina and Mal shared, but STILL! It just screamed Grisha to me. I could not NOT share it.

The Hair

GT-hairI presume Alina’s hair was back to white by the time she and Mal tied the knot, and since Mal mentioned very specifically wanting to see a white veil in her hair, I thought combining the white hair updo with this simple veil might be a look worn by Alina on her big day.

The Accessories

GT-accessoriesI honestly don’t know what the deal with the driftwood crown is, but it was mentioned in the book (“He had to stand on a chair to hold the driftwood crows above their heads as the blessings were said”), so I Googled for one and found the image on the bottom right. For Alina’s bridal accessories, I decided to go with a simplistic sun theme as a reminder of her recent past, including this sun-inspired ring and sun charm necklace.

The Groom

GT-groomI don’t know what Mal would wear, and it probably wouldn’t even be this, but I was looking for something nice but laid back and not black. This guy also looks a little bit like I picture Mal (though Mal is probably a little more muscular?), so there was also that. It’s hard to follow up that dress.

The Location

A chapel stood on the coast of West Ravka, south of Os Kervo, on the shores of the True Sea. It was a quiet place, where the waves came nearly to the door. The whitewashed walls were laden with shells, and the dome that floated above the altar looked less like the heavens than the deep blue well of the sea.

GT-seaside-chapelWhen I first started looking for images for the proper white chapel for this wedding, I immediately thought of the Interfaith Chapel in Seaside, FL, which I saw (the outside, not the inside) when I visited there. It seems like just the right size, and I love the way the way it is decorated in the left photo, because it makes me think of the stag’s antlers and just the trilogy in general. But then I reread this part of the epilogue and looked for some more chapel pictures that might be slightly more fitting.

GT-bluedomechapelPhoto source for top picture

These three pictures are not actually of the same place, but we’ll pretend they are. 🙂

The Cake

GT-cakeEven the smallest of weddings deserve a little cake. This is the sort of simple cake that I imagine Alina and Mal might have celebrated their marriage with.

What would you expect from the Ruin and Rising wedding, or at one inspired by it? 

Double Review: Siege & Storm and Ruin & Rising

I thoroughly enjoyed Shadow and Bone when I read it on vacation in May, and was excited that I would get to read the second and third books of the trilogy so soon. And thankfully, I was not disappointed.

grisha2&3I am not really going to talk about each book individually, but here were the highlights of both of the books for me:

– Sturmhond *highlight for spoilers*/Nikolai and his humor and his personality and basically everything about him.

– The pacing in Siege and Storm was amazing! It started with a bang and never let me go.

– The plot was always thickening, the stakes always raising… basically, Bargdugo is excellent at crafting a riveting story.

– The FEELS.

– The ending was absolutely perfect. To remain vague… Part of what happened, I had wanted since the first book but didn’t think was possible, a couple parts I wanted since the first book and thought them possible and were glad they happened, and the rest I couldn’t have dreamed of. It was all just great, exactly what it needed to be… not perfectly happy, but happy with a cost and a perfectly satisfying conclusion for the reader.

I did have a few small problems, however…

– The pacing of the first half of Ruin and Rising was slow and weird for me. The whole first part with the Apparet and being underground just old quick for me and I was ready to move on.

– For some reason, I started to like Alina and Mal’s relationship a little less with each book. *highlight for spoilers* I was still rooting for them overall, but I don’t know, it just became less appealing. While reading, I almost wondered what it would be like if Alina did start to like Nikolai, even though I didn’t want her to flake out on Mal either. I know, it’s so complicated. But I am happy they did end up together at last. By the way, I don’t understand anyone who is Team Darkling. He’s so evil, why do you love him?! But I digress… 

– Even though these books did give me feels, I still felt slightly distanced from the characters (which I mentioned in my review of Shadow and Bone) for reasons I can’t really express. I think I just never really connected with any of them fully. I find the storytelling and the world of The Grisha Trilogy its strong suits, and while I liked the characters, they’re a bit weaker in comparison to the overall story or in comparison to the characters of, oh let’s say The Hunger Games, where I was completely emotionally invested in virtually all its characters. I wanted that with these books, and never got it. But to be clear, I did care about Alina, Mal, and some of the others and their well-being, it just wasn’t quite to the extent that I fully hope for.

The amazingness of this trilogy really outweighs my complaints though, and I would highly recommend this series to anyone thinking about checking it out. Each book gets 4.5 stars from me.

4-5stars-editContent advisory: Mild language, violence, and a somewhat fade-to-black, very discreetly, not-at-all-graphically written sex scene. 

Also, check out these reviews that I enjoyed and are a more eloquently written than this one:

Sana’s review of Siege and Storm

Brittany’s review of Ruin and Rising

Are you a fan of The Grisha Trilogy? What are your thoughts on the series as a whole? Or have you started and not finished (then what are you waiting for?!)?