(view spoiler)[ Well that was disappointing. I love two characters from this series, Nikolai and Aleksander and neither got much page time in this installment. 
 My biggest gripe is that I've never liked Alina and Mal together. They should be childhood friends or adoptive siblings. Nikolai and Alina were my preferred couple as he saw her as an equal powerful or powerless. Mal's whining that he can't be around Alina if she is so much stronger than him (Books 1&2 mainly) implies that she should dull herself to suit him if she wants a relationship with him. The phrase, 'The sun does not care who it blinds' would be highly applicable to the Alina that I wanted to see across the series, Powerful, Commanding, An equal force against the strong male characters (Nikolai and Aleksander). Alina is unfortunately a weak character pretending to be a strong one. The idea that she and Mal can only be a couple if she loses her Summoning powers irked me to no end. 
 Furthermore I was never certain about the relationship shown between Genya and David. Perhaps unintentionally, the relationship is stifled until the beautiful woman is brought on a more level pegging with the average looking man. Their relationship flourishes when she is weak and needs caring for and this paralleled Mal and Alina's strange relationship. Even Aleksander seemed to see Alina as and equal, Nikolai saw her as an equal and yet Bardugo chose to pair her with the one person who couldn't handle her being better than he was. 
 A lot of big reveals came in very late in the series and the final battle was less of the "rising" promised in the title but more of a small skirmish, not dissimilar to the end of the first book. 
 The ending fell flat for me and although I am still likely to read Six of Crows I can't say I'm likely to ever re-read this trilogy. (hide spoiler)]