NerdyBirdie

Hey guys, I hope you all are having a great day, and this is my review to Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone which is the first book in The Grisha Trilogy.

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 have to admit; I wasn’t sure whether or not I liked the direction the book was going in for the first . . .  fifty pages. I found that Bardugo had just assumed that we knew everything about her world, and that it wasn’t that necessary to put in detail at the beginning. But as I continued reading this book, I eventually got driven and wanted to keep up with the plot as much as I could.

In the beginning, Alina annoyed the heck out of me! All she wanted to do was complain about not being pretty. This girl is the Sun Summoner—whom everyone trusts wholeheartedly in Ravka, and she is concerned about how pretty she looks. It almost made me want to keep a tally about the number of times she complains just to see how far this girl can go, but I managed to control myself.

And, once again, I got past that pretty quickly.

After a while of reading, the plot began to speed up with quite the thrill, and a lot of things that happened made turn page after page after page. It was a nice read, but I felt it could’ve been better.

Alina changed which made me relieved. After she learned to look inside herself, she truly began to “shine” in her own way. So hopefully,  this makes room for character development and she can completely get past the whole “I’m not pretty” thing and move on to more important things that she should’ve done! :D

So yes, I am definitely getting the next book, Siege and Storm!

My favorite character was the Darkling, but anything I say may be too much or too little. ;)

I would recommend this to people who enjoy fantasy. If you do know a bit about Russian culture, why not give this a try? It may seem slow in the beginning, but it does get better. So yes, if you want to give a try, then go ahead!

Thanks for reading this review guys, and I hope you have a great weekend!