Ash's Reviews > Shadow and Bone

My first thoughts upon picking this book up: “Hooray, another Russian-inspired fantasy series!” But The Winternight Trilogy this was not.

I can understand the Leigh Bardugo hype. Her writing style is really something else. She paints a picture with her words in a way not many authors have mastered, but her descriptions and imagery never drag on or distract from the plot. And I did read the whole book in a day, which is rare for me, although to be fair, I skimmed parts of it.

I was lukewarm about Alina. Her characterization was inconsistent, and she was very much your typical young adult female protagonist: stubborn to a fault, stupidly talks back to authority, initially doubts herself, and, of course, has rare magical powers that set her apart from everyone else and make her special. Have I mentioned I’m so sick of Chosen One stories?

The side characters were a mixed bag. Mal took a while to grow on me but eventually I came to appreciate him. I didn’t like that Alina was pining over him from the beginning, so we couldn’t see her feelings for him develop. Hands down my favorite character was the Darkling. I would have enjoyed the story far more from his perspective.

Parts of the plot dragged: Alina’s training, any part of the book where she was traveling (which happened a few times). This is pretty typical for me. I tend to get bored of fantasy books that spend too much time on training or traveling. If I had borrowed this book from a friend or the library, I wouldn’t have finished it, but because I actually paid for it, I felt invested.

The worldbuilding was disappointing. It just wasn’t as Russian as I wanted. It had a Russian aftertaste, but mostly consisted of classic YA and fantasy tropes. I am begging YA authors to stop sorting their characters into groups (in this case, the three types of Grisha: Corporalki, Etherealki, and Materialki). The Shadow Fold was a neat concept.

Like most readers, I hate (view spoiler)[love triangles (hide spoiler)], so that was another disappointment. The reveal of (view spoiler)[the Darkling’s true intentions (hide spoiler)] felt very rushed, which made it unsatisfying. The ending, though, was unexpected and thrilling. If only the whole book had been like that, I would have loved it.

I know I’m in the minority on this one. Even though I didn’t really enjoy it, a part of me wants to keep reading the series just to find out how it ends, so that’s something I guess.