Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo Book Review

“The Darkling slumped back in his chair. “Fine,” he said with a weary shrug. “Make me your villain.” 

About

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Young-Adult Dystopian Fantasy

Series: The Grishaverse Book 1

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Other Shadow and Bone Series Book Reviews

Siege and Storm

Ruin and Rising

Synopsis

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.

Review

Spoilers Contained Below

Dear humbled reader,

If you haven’t heard the joyous news, the Grishaverse is being adapted into a Netflix show! I read Shadow and Bone last year, but I wasn’t really into it, granted I was kind of in a reading slump last year, so it probably wasn’t the best idea to read a fantasy dystopian book when I should have read something lighter. But that’s okay. So hearing the news, I told myself, I would give the Grishaverse another chance.

And try I did!

I can thoroughly say that I liked reading it this time around because I actually had a desire to read it. I wouldn’t say it’s my utmost favorite series so far because who knows, maybe the second or third books will change my mind. But I think just acknowledging that I enjoyed it as opposed to not liking it the first time around, is a big step for me.

Going into this book, it’s a lot of new words and world building. I was kind of confused and lost with all the vocabulary and all the words that had too many r’s and z’s and o’s in them at times. I swear, I don’t know how to pronounce any of the Grishaverse vocab! Do you find yourself tongue twisted like me? Thank goodness there was the page in the front of the book that explained what all the people in the Grishaverse were.

Grisha are individuals that have powers. They draw on their power from things from the natural world—-an extension of themselves. They can be categorized into three groups. There’s the Corporalki who are the order of the living and the dead. They are towards the top of the pyramid with the heartrenders and healers. Heartrenders are people who can cause pain by hurting people’s internal organs and healers are people who can, well, heal others. The next level is the Etheralki who are the order of summoners. They’re the squallers who can manipulate wind, the inferno who can manipulate fire, and the tidemakers who can manipulate water. Then at the bottom of the pyramid are the Materialki who are the order of the fabricators like the durasts and the alkemi who specialize in chemical properties. But on the top is the Darkling who can manipulate shadows and all things dark. Do you ever wonder if the Darkling has a real name? Imagine if his real name was something like Bob.

Then there’s Alina. Alina grew up as an orphan with her best friends whom she had a secret crush on for years. As kids, they were tested to see if they were Grisha but they weren’t. That was until Alina and Mal set across the Fold and when they were attacked by Volcra, her power unleashed like Elsa herself and she burst like the sun. I can just imagine her lighting up like a lightbulb 💡

It was really devastating that she lost her friend Alexei. He seemed like a good person. (P.S. If you watched Stranger Things 3, you would know why the name Alexei strikes a chord in me.

After exerting all this power she never knew she had, Alina blacked out and then she awakened to people staring at her strangely like they’re scared of her. And she doesn’t know what she did wrong. I could just imagine how she must have felt. It was probably that same heart in the stomach feeling people get when they get called to the principal’s office but they don’t know what they’ve done wrong.

Apparently she was a sun summoner and the savior of Ravka.

Her power could destroy the fold because the Volcra are scared of light. So the Darkling whisks her away to Little Palace for some reason that I forgot. Maybe to be protected from the neighboring countries? I don’t know, sorry!

But I kind of don’t understand how her power could destroy a gigantic river that has Volcra-like-flying-people-things with spiked teeth. Like is her light power going to cause a drought and the water’s going to magically dry up? Are the Volcra just going to drop dead and, violá, there’s land again? I kind of don’t get how she alone can destroy the fold with her light power.

When we get to the Little Palace, I imagine this Aladdin like village with hobbled shops and street vendors, and then the Grand Palace as Jasmine’s palace. I found it kind of strange how the Darkling was being nice to her. This whole time, I was kind of rooting for that relationship. Did that make me weird? I think it was the fact that he was “the bad boy” troupe, and I thought that because they both had powers that they should be together. And again, I’m not for instant love or being told that a character loves someone from the get-go, so I didn’t really feel the love connection between Mal and Alina because I don’t know their history. So here I was relishing in the fact that the Darkling had a school boy crush on her.

As much as I disliked his character the more we learn about him, I couldn’t help but like how he made Alina feel welcome at the Little Palace when she was plucked from her life to train as Grisha. Grisha may have powers but they were still prone to the typical groups of the popular kids and the nerdy ones.

I was also soooooo into the fact that he kissed her by the pond one day. I wasn’t so much surprised he kissed her because gosh knows that was bound to happen, but I just thought the way he did it was kind of comical and weird. He just sprung one on her when they were talking and it was just uncalled for. I guess that show’s his lack of social skills in knowing when the time is right. And how typical to kiss her and then disappear afterwards.

Then Alina couldn’t stop thinking about his dark gray eyes and his hair. And I swear he Darkling and Alina wrapped around his dark little fingers.

Do you imagine the Darkling as Kylo Ren from Star Wars? Because every time I think of who the Darkling is, I see the long black hair, the dark outfit and the cape.

Then at the Winter Fete, he ordered her a kefta that was in his colors! WOOOOW! I was living at the moment! Because no one else was allowed to wear black except the Darkling, so the fact he gifted her a black kefta showed a lot about how he felt about her. It was like he was laying claim to his woman. Which was kind of weird now that I look back on it, but I liked it at the time.

I also liked how Genya took Alina’s arm and barged into Zoya’s room and told her that they needed her room to change Alina, Darkling’s order. Zoya looked at Alina with her mouth hanging open in shock at her black Kefta. Take a picture of Zoya, it’ll last longer! 🤪 But I just loved how Genya was like, did you see the look on her face? It was hilarious!

And then there was the moment in the closet! I can’t express to you how much I was rooting for that relationship! Don’t worry I cringe at myself too! But wow! The closet scene. And then later on in the book, the Darkling makes this joke to Mal about what Alina and him did in the closet. Honey, you did nothing scandalous in that closet besides kiss. Don’t inflate your ego too much! But the jab made Mal jealous! Clever, clever.

And even though my support for that relationship dwindled as we learned more about who he was and his intentions, I still kind of feel like beneath it all, the Darkling would be a good person. He’s as old as time and I feel like when you have so many years on you, you want to find love and be in a relationship and I think he likes Alina as much as it pains him.

“The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak.”

He definitely wants her 🤪.

Alina just has that special kind of gift like he does and you know what they say, “opposites attract” and Alina is literally his opposite because she’s light and he’s darkness. And I think that part of him had good intentions and that’s why people trust and respect him so much, but I think that he doesn’t have to do the darkest, most devout thing to keep peace. I think he just needs more love and guidance in his life. People can change, and I think if maybe he changed for the better, he and Alina would be a cute couple or good friends.

I also happened to adore Genya. She genuinely sounded like a decent person. My first impression of her was that she was bold in how she knocked on Alina’s door, telling she needs to fix her before she meets the King. Then we learned of her low status as a makeup artist for the Queen and that she’s also the King’s “special friend.” The Grisha know this and they treat her like garbage for it. ” I honestly wanted to hit Grisha for thinking so lowly of Genya.

She was such a good girl friend to Alina who never had girl friends, or I don’t think so. But Alina found comfort in her and when they would eat dinner together or chat. I liked how Alina picked up on her crush for David, the Fabrikator and how Alina was rooting for Genya and him to be together. Me too, me too.

Then we see Genya’s true colors 👉🏼👈🏼.

She agreed with the Darkling’s idea to expand the fold because she’s convinced it’s a good idea that will benefit Ravka. Genya also probably helped poison the King who got mysteriously sick, being that she has close access to the King and Queen. Then Genya shows up at the end in a kefta robe of red, to highlight her new status and allegiance to the Darkling. And then there’s David. I never thought much of David besides being a reserved kind of person, but gosh, the shock when he comes out at the end with the amplifier necklace. I used to like you dude. I lost respect for Genya and David towards the end.

But again, I could still see that they were good people who were just convinced that the only way to bring peace was a dark thing. I think they were also just in a bad position and setting where they had to make tough choices as to who they wanted to fight for and they chose the Darkling because he’s a very convincing person. Heck, he even fooled Alina. But in my heart, I know Genya’s a good person, and David too, but I just think they’re confused as to what’s right with what has to be done.

But let’s talk about Alina’s training at the Little Palace. I liked Baghra. She seemed like a tough cookie of an old woman, but I think she did it out of tough love. She pushed Alina constantly to use her power rather than how she suppressed it all these years because she was holding onto this dream of being with Mal. And when Alina was staying at the Little Palace, she had all these luxurious things like hot water, steaming food, and fresh clothes, but yet she couldn’t seem to sleep, focus, or harness her power. It’s because she’s still living in the past of who she was with Mal. As a little girl, she probably suppressed her Grisha power because she didn’t want to be separated from the boy she had a crush on—-who she still has a crush on. She sent Mal all these letters asking if he was safe and to reply to her, but he never did write back. That worried and crushed Alina. It crushed her spirits and her ability to work with her power.

Then Alina had a realization one day: she was holding on to Mal for so long and he wasn’t even responding to her, so she decided she needed to let go of him and accept who she is—-accepting her power. And then, truly then, did Alina begin to glow and burn bright. That’s when Alina started to control her powers and when her training took off.

Now, here’s the reason I have such a loathing for Zoya. The audacity of her to actually use her powers to hurt Alina when they were training that one day. OOOOOOH! She wanted to play dirty! You know who also plays dirty, Zoya? PIGS! YOU’RE A PIG! I’m name calling a fictional character, that’s normal right? 😆

Anyway, she got her comeuppance because no one thought that was cool so they ignored her. Even the Darkling and the trainer looked down on her for it. Speaking of characters I didn’t like, there’s also Ivan. Again I think he’s a good person, but who just chose to side with the side that was most likely to win or the side that he was scared of but was safe on. It’s kind of like that guy in Thor: Ragnarok who turned good at the end to help the people escape the bridge. Then there’s the Apparat, who I just don’t understand. He comes across as a kind of creepy stalker who tries to follow Alina and I felt like when he tried to follow her, he wanted to warn her of something, but I guess we’ll never truly know. I hope that get I to see him again and understand what his intentions were with the whole fairytale thing.

But back to Bagrha. Who would have thought she was the mother to the Darkling!? That means she’s ancient. Not in a rude, she’s incompetent way, but if the Darkling’s old then she has to be older. I had so much respect for Bagrha in how she still loved her son, but she saved Alina from succumbing to his charms and his false promises. I thought it was kind of cool that she still loved and cared for her son despite all the dark, evil things he’s done in his life. She wanted to save him from himself to the point of return. That has to be some strong mother love to still look out for her son.

I really would like to know what happened to Bagrha and how she mysteriously disappeared. Gosh, I hope he didn’t kill his own mom. Now, that’s unforgivably vial.

I found the amplifier thing interesting in how each Grisha could only have one amplifier. The Darkling had his amplifier already, but he wanted to find the Morozoava stag to amplify Alina’s power so he could USE her. We don’t like a liar or a user.

Of course, Mal, the excellent tracker, was able to find the stag with Alina when she escaped and found him in the woods. I liked how they reunited and became friends again and talked about how he never got the letters in the first place and that they missed each other. Together they agreed that they would find the stag before the Darkling did, but if the Darkling found it, she wanted Mal to kill her before the Darkling could lay claim to her with the collar and make Alina his servant. That’s a big request to ask of a friend—to knowingly murder your best friend. I know I wouldn’t have been able to make that promise or agree to that. A life is a life.

And they did find the stag before the Darkling, but Alina couldn’t bring herself to kill it because she saw the innocent and freighted look of the stag. But she should have done it because the Darkling was waiting in the shadows to just pop up and kill it. I swear this man pops up at the most random times and at the most inconvenient moments.

At that point, the Darkling had the stag and could make Alina his “slave” when he put it on her. Alina was begging Mal to kill her and do it and I was like he’s not going to do it. No way, Jose is going to kill his best friend. No one would have the strength to do that. I could just feel the weight of the stag on Alina and just felt it bring her down like a guillotine.

Honestly, I don’t like that man.

But the part where the Darkling took her and Mal on the boat to go to the fold and they’re talking and he’s like beg for Mal’s life. Then Alina’s like:

“I have no choice but to serve you, but if Mal comes to harm, I will never forgive you. I will fight you any way that I can. I will spend every waking minute looking for a way to end my life, and eventually, I’ll succeed. But show him mercy, let hemline, and I will serve you gladly. I will spend the rest of my days proving my gratitude.” I nearly choked on that last word.”

(pg. 326)

Honey, I’m choking along with you 🤮 😂!

Your gratitude to that vile monster?

I don’t think so!

But the fact that she said she would keep fighting him and would take her own life if it meant that Mal was harmed, just struck something in me. Because she would sacrifice her own life for her friend and for the world. And the fact that she did beg for his life to that Darkling of a man, inside and out, was as sad as if she bowed to him. Mal was her weakness.

And boy, I think the fact she liked Mal a lot made the Darkling jeeeeallllloouuuuusssss 😉

I loved the moment when Ivan brough Alina down to the prison cells where Mal was being held on the boat and Alina and him they reminisce about old times. They held hands through the iron bars of the prison and held each other. They even fell asleep like that. My heart. I truly do love their friendship 💙

The final scenes on the boat where Alina learns to conquer the amplifier and Darkling’s order was such a powerful scene. I liked how she was able to run away and save Mal amidst the battle or that she let the volcra swarm down around the Grisha army on the ship.

I’m excited to see where Mal and Alina will head next. The Darkling is bound to find the other amplifiers in the following books and I think that he’s going to create some kind of war or fight and use Alina’s power to his will. I also think that we’re going to see Bagrha again because she’s a strong woman and I think she’s alive. And she’s such a good mother figure despite her being kind of tough. I also just kind of want to see the Darkling become a better person because I can see it in him—-the good. And I think he can change the world for the better if he changed for the better too. I also think Alina has to destroy the fold at one point. I think that’s the endgame here and a better world for the Grisha.

What were your thoughts about the book? Your favorite or least favorite parts? Are you team Darkling or team Mal? Let me know in the comments below! 💕

I hope you have a beautiful, wonderful, and amazing day and always emit light and positivity like Alina! Never darkness like the Darkling.

Until next book,

As always, with love,

Rating

4.36 Full Bloom Flowers

Characters: I liked the complexities of the character, especially the Darkling. He seems like a kicked puppy who just needs love and light in his life. Maybe Alina will show him that.

Plot: The beginning is a lot of understanding the world, so it can seem kind of slow. The middle got better with all the training, the ball, and seeing Mal. The ending was exciting but not the most exciting thing.

Writing: Lots of confusing words at first, but you get used to it as the book goes on. The overall writing style was simple and easy to fall into.

Action: Lots of action that happens mostly on boats. And sometimes in closets ; ) Just kidding.

Romance: Not a romance heavy book, but it will test you in who’s best for Alina. Honestly, she doesn’t need a man and I like her as just friends with Mal. But is it weird I’m still secretly pinning for the Darkling?