by Leigh Bardugo
“And there’s nothing wrong with being a lizard either. Unless you were born to be a hawk.”
-Page 156
Title: Shadow and Bone
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Indigo
Book: #1 of The Grisha
Genre: Fantasy
Found: On my bookcase
Rating: 3.5 Voodoos
The Shadow Fold, a swathe of impenetrable darkness, crawling with monsters that feast on human flesh, is slowly destroying the once-great nation of Ravka.
Alina, a pale, lonely orphan, discovers a unique power that thrusts her into the lavish world of the kingdom’s magical elite – the Grisha. Could she be the key to unravelling the dark fabric of the Shadow Fold and setting Ravka free?
The Darkling, a creature of seductive charm and terrifying power, leader of the Grisha. If Alina is to fulfil her destiny, she must discover how to unlock her gift and face up to her dangerous attraction to him.
But what of Mal, Alina’s childhood best friend? As Alina contemplates her dazzling new future, why can’t she ever quite forget him?
Glorious. Epic. Irresistible. Romance. Perfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and Laini Taylor.-Goodreads
I started reading this book several months ago. I was quite enjoying it and then an important plot point happened and I just stopped. I don’t think I was particularly pleased with this plot point as the twist involved previously really interesting characters. It also annoyed me because it involved the second so called love interest. I’m of the belief that if you fall for a second person you couldn’t have the first enough to begin with. Of course that’s not quite what was happening here so I may forgive it – if it behaves in the next two books!
The problem with stopping a book is that you have two options, banish said book to the DNF pile or bite the bullet and pick it up again. A lot of time can be wasted deciding which, but Bookstagram and my ownership of Six of Crows forced me to finally make a decision, you should be able to guess which!
I re-read some of this to find which page the above quote was on and it reminded me how much I was enjoying it before The Incident but because of the big 2 month gap it totally broke my flow and I’m all unsure about how I truly feel about the whole thing. I remember before thinking little of Mal but afterwards I rather liked him – so perhaps the gap was useful and maybe required for me to adjust to the perspective shift or maybe I’m just looking for justification…
I like what we’ve seen of this world so far, it seems pretty different to anything I’ve read, especially recently. The Grisha’s powers are the other way around to what they usually are and I like that. It makes some sense, though the lack of appetite in Alina’s case didn’t seem to make ANY sense, surely she’d have needed MORE food, not less? Plus, the send of the book involved no practice of skills which concerned me. You don’t keep them if you don’t practice them!
My tiny re-read makes me think that I’ve forgotten more than I thought I had, but I’m hoping some form of re-cap will happen with further explanation in the next books because I’m going to read book 2 in a minute and book 3 next month to fit in with the #PaeinandMs4Tune2017 colour challenge! Because why not?
When I think of Alina I do consider her to be a little annoying, but then I remember how she got in this situation and I realise she’s rather a loyal character and I get confused. As I said Mal has grown on me and the rest of the Grisha we won’t discuss right now, maybe because of spoilers, maybe because there’s two more books and I’m sure my views will change again. Besides it’s always good to have all the information first.
Have you read this book? What did you think about it?
