Shadow and Bone (Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1) (Grishaverse, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

[Kait ✨]

New 2018 thoughts, after rereading two years later...

It was okay, but not as great as I remembered. Alina had an infuriating lack of agency and the story overall suffered from a lot of telling instead of showing. Her waffling between feeling “ordinary” (“I’m a nobody and don’t deserve anything”) and “special” (“everyone’s trying to kill me”) irritated me a lot during this reread. Bardugo’s style also felt very young and underdeveloped to me.

Ultimately it felt unremarkable and displayed a total lack of subversiveness of the genre’s stereotypes and tropes, and I guess my expectations for fantasy novels have changed in the last two years.

------------------------------------------------

Original review:

dashing out a quick review here because I don’t want to forget my memory of this book and I’m going to start the second one ASAP and don’t want them all confused.

I can’t believe I waited so long to read this series! I slipped right into the world of Ravka and finished it pretty much in one sitting, in one afternoon anyway. for me, Shadow and Bone ticked all the elements of a fantastic fantasy novel: Bardugo’s use of Imperial Russia as a starting point for the setting made the world building top notch, the magic system was interesting and explained sufficiently but without info-dumps (for a first novel), and the adventure/quest element. I also really like fantasy books with a training aspect so Alina’s time at the Little Palace was one of my favourite parts.

Shadow and Bone is a bit stereotypical at times—the storyline is very much plain Jane discovers extraordinary powers she doesn’t feel she deserves and falls in love with her devoted, generic-soldier-boy childhood BFF—but… that stereotype kinda works for a reason and I felt that Bardugo did a really good job making it feel fresh.

my one tiny complaint perhaps would be that Alina’s power was a bit predictable and I’m not hugely thrilled with the trajectory so far. by this I mean—Alina can only really use her power when Mal’s in danger. it’s just something that didn’t sit quite right but I am hoping Bardugo allows Alina’s power and strength to grow in the second book. I love Mal but I also feel that his relationship with Alina is a bit too easy and sweet… the dynamic between the Darkling and Alina was much more interesting to me.

so so excited to start [b:Siege and Storm|14061955|Siege and Storm (Grisha Verse, #2)|Leigh Bardugo|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1362166252s/14061955.jpg|19699752] which I will be doing tonight!