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Shadow and Bone is the first book of the Grisha triology by Leigh Bardugo, and it is getting a Netflix adaption next month.
Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.
Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.
I started this book because I am intrigued by the Netflix series, and I like reading the book before watching other mediums of the stories. I have heard a lot of raving about Six of Crows, but I've heard it's leagues better than S&B. Plus, although I do not have to read S&B to understand SoC, I figured I'd still start there, especially given that is the focus of the series.
And what can I say about S&B except... it exists? Like, this is a very solid 2.5 YA High Fantasy that is the epitome of everything the typical, formulaic YA High Fantasy is.
"Not like other girls" "not-pretty" girl discovers she has secret powers, gets taken in to be thrown around by power plays she doesn't understand, secret stuff to the magic that nobody before thought possible, catches interest of Mr. Dark and Handsome that others fall over themselves for, girl is apparently so amazing despite very little shown difficulties and little personality outside of "not like other girls."
I do like the magic in the book, even if the magic system is crazy loose and not defined. It doesn't have to be a hard magic system to be enjoyable, after all. It is a system I want to see expanded upon and explored more. There is also some interesting political stuff going on that lifts the book a little above other formulaic YA High Fantasy.
Honestly, it's the characters that drag this down so much. The Darkling is intriguing, yeah, but something about him just feels so... I dunno, "angsty leather pants LI bad boy." I feel like he could be more interesting, but, well... His anchor to my least favorite character makes him just not. Who is that character? Alina. Why? She is a flipping awful main character.
She makes maybe 3 of 4 decisions in this book for herself the entire book. The rest is her being yanked around by the plot. Like, she doesn't even discover the main twist of the book. It is just laid at her feet. Then after that, when I thought things were about to become more interesting... She's just dragged around by someone else... Like, she has such little agency that what could be an interesting (though admittedly tropey) character is just... Not.
Maybe it could have been pulled off if the writing wasn't also so just meh as well. It's not bad, not by any means. But it's nothing spectacular either.
ALSO! Can we talk about how many characters just suddenly feel evil purely because they're now known to be the bad guys? Like, they just have a sudden flip of characters. Yes, I'm looking at you, Mr. Right-Hand-of-Main-Bad-Guy.
I think the best way to describe this book is it reads like a first draft of something that could have been so much better. We got the skeleton of a book that, if a whole lotta meat had been added to its bones, would have been a really thrilling ride. Which I am holding out hope is what I find in SoC. Plus, I've heard some great things about a future coming character to this series, so we shall see.
Rounding this up to a 3 star purely because, yeah, fun magic system... And it made me think for a split second it was going to get really interesting with the twist.
