best served cold, by joe abercrombie
fantasy, grimdark | mature audiences | 5 stars

*some spoilers ahead*

best served cold is joe abercrombie’s fourth book and it’s set in the first law universe, but it’s standalone so you don’t have to read the first law trilogy first to understand this book. and it’s a phenomenal book, i think my absolute favourite by joe abercrombie and i’m the person who literally devours his books.

it’s dark, and gritty and there’s war and blood and bloody fights but the thing that stands out to me the most in this book is monza murcatto, the snake of talins, and one of the most badass female characters i’ve ever read about! and like that’s number one of why i love this book so much - monza is powerful and capable and ruthless and she’s not a good person and her misdeeds have consequences. in fact, in all of joe abercrombie’s books, that’s also something that stands out to me - consequences. if you do a thing, you bet your ass it will come around and bite you later. and that’s fucking great.

anyhow back to the actual story - it’s springtime in styria and that means war (mostly because it’s almost always some war in styria lol). monza is a mercenary and she thrives in war (obviously), but she’s betrayed and left for dead but ,,,she doesn’t die yay. though her brother dies as a result and she’s left crippled which is *bad*.

instead, she gathers a ragtag band of scoundrels and wrongdoers (styria’s least reliable drunkard, styria’s most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a northman who just wants to do the right thing*) and plots her sweet, cold, sweet, bloody, very bloody revenge against grand duke orso after he basically throws her off a mountain.

this book has everything - a heisty, revenge-y plot (who doesn’t love one of those?), badass monza, badass allies of monza, engaging plot that you won’t be able to stop reading, some dark romance thrown in, but also, get this - it’s fucking hilarious at times. there’s this character by the name of nicomo cosca, he’s a drunkard, he’s fucking fabulous and he switches sides as socks and has the best one liners in the book.

another ally is caul shivers who comes to styria trying to be a better man but then meets monza who really morally ruins the guy into shreds of what he once wanted. reading shivers’ character development is like seeing an accident and not being able to look away, it’s that good and that dark and twisty.

there’s also friendly, a mass murderer and he’s obsessed with dice so he’s somehow both terrifying and funny and cute at the same time.

besides being amazing at characterisation, joe abercrmobie’s dialogue in this is just wonderfully fun to read, because yeah, it’s hilarious at times, and at other times it packs a punch and hits you hard. and action! ffs, he’s great at writing action and it just draws you in and you feel like you’re right there in the story going through it all, all the battles and duels and skirmishes, it’s fucking awesome. a real thrill.

a must read for fantasy and grimdark lovers out there.

*list of allies with descriptors taken from official book summary