Saturday, February 13, 2016

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo


Title: Shadow and Bone
By: Leigh Bardugo
Published: June 5, 2012

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 actually was pretty surprised at how different this book was and it was good different!  But, *ha there's always a but*, I did have some minor problems with it. I wanted to see more of the surroundings of the grisha world. I mean most of the time Alina was just confined on the castle grounds, she never went out to explore the town or anything.  I mean Leigh Bardugo's writing style is amazing! It blew me away, because of how good her writing is. I loved how her writing style just flowed throughout the book and immersed us into it. 

Though I felt the books pace was kinda inconsistent. The plot went really fast in the beginning and at the end, then it just really slowed down in the middle of the book. Now onto the characters! Hm.. I cannot say I absolutely loved all the characters cause honestly I would be lying. I wasn't too big on any of the characters. None of them really like made me spontaneously combust cause how awesome they were. Don't hate me but I just felt the characters were a bit mediocre, per se cliche..? I really did want more development on the characters. I get that there needs to be a villain in a book series and that he needs to have a huge impact, but I don't know.. For the first time I guess I really did not expect to see the guy I was rooting for not be part of the love triangle. O_O -sigh- Honestly I thought the Darkling would've been some sort of tragic guy who would open his heart to Alina, not some faker... -le cries- I was rooting for DarklingxAlina, but really I should've seen it coming, I should've been ready!!! I mean I guess he did "love" Alina, though it was just superficial infatuation towards her powers. But truthfully I didn't really expect her going back to Mal either.. I mean he finally likes her but he only realized that after she left. That's why I was sorta rooting for the Darkling in the beginning buuuttt we all know what happens in the end.(˃̩̩̥ɷ˂̩̩̥)

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Even with the slight problems I had with the characters, I still will read the next book in the series, cause even though I didn't particularly like the characters, I loved the writing style and the world. Its pretty intriguing and I do want to know what happens next. Cause like you know the feeling you get when your about to get to the ending of a book and you're like, "what? This can't be the ending of it, there has to be more!!! :o", thats how I felt. & The fact is that I already got the next book in the series from the library! xD 

Until then, Cindy x)
P.S. Guys have a nice Valentines Day! :)

4 comments:

  1. Ahhhh, I've read this series! Things get quite...interesting? Intense?...in the next book. You'll definitely get to see a lot more of the Grisha world, plus get introduced to one of my favourite characters in the series :)

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    1. Yep! I definitely can't wait till I read the next book to see what happens next. But first gotta read through the rest of my other books xD

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  2. Ooh, I really loved this one! The next one I didn't like as much, but it was still pretty good -- there is this really incredible character that is added to be excited for ;)

    Cari @ My Addiction: Books

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    1. Yeah I've heard about this new amazing character several times! & It really makes me want to read the next book now to figure out who it is! Thx for commenting Cari! ;)

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