Shadow and Bone Review

    I want to start this off with an apology. This review was supposed to be uploaded here quite a while ago. Apparently, when I uploaded the post and the review on Goodreads, I forgot to do it here and just realized it was still in my drafts, so now the reviews are out of order :( I am so sorry about this! Just to clarify, this is the FIRST book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy.

     Alina Starkov is a soldier doomed to be sent to the Shadow Fold- an area of land that is pitch black and contains monstrous creatures. While traveling through the Shadow Fold, her and her regiment are attacked, and Alina releases a power buried deep in her. Now she will train with other military who have powers- the Grisha. Their leader, the Darkling, thinks that if Alina can learn to control her magic, she can destroy the Shadow Fold and save their country. While learning about her past and her magic, the threat keeps growing and Alina discovers something that could destroy her country and everything she holds dear.

    Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:

    To start off, I'll give a small warning. If you do not like tropes, maybe look for a different book. If you are fine with them or enjoy them, you should be perfectly fine reading this. They do not bother me personally. In fact, they are  guilty pleasure of sorts. However, I noticed many people commenting negatively on the tropes in their reviews, so I wanted to say that they are definitely present in this book. Additionally, the outline for this book is pretty similar to the basic YA fantasy book that I am sure the vast majority of YA readers have read before; however, I believe Bardugo did a good job at making it her own, at least mostly.

    The characters in this book are great. It was fun to watch Alina grow and change throughout the course of the book. I am still hoping to see a little more growth, but there are two books left for that to happen, and if she went through all of the growth I am hoping for in a single book it would be unrealistic, so I am actually glad the author did not do this. The changes Alina experienced in this book are perfect. The Darkling is very interesting and such a deep character. I greatly enjoyed reading about him. He threw in a few nice curve balls that kept the story from being static. I am not absolutely in love with Mal, but I do like him. I feel like his character will be developed a lot more later and I will love him, but as of right now, I feel like I did not get to know the true Mal well enough to love him.

    The world building was done extremely well. I have a thorough understanding of all of the Grisha powers and find them all very cool. The world itself is quite awesome. Don't get me wrong- it's kind of a horrible place as far as creatures and people, but it is still awesome and well explained. I could visualize the places pretty clearly along with all of the people and creatures.

    Now for the reason I gave it four stars instead of five: the plot. The last half/third of the book was amazing. That is actually what saved the book from three stars for me. Sadly, the first half of the book was slightly boring. I was not super invested in it. I did not mind reading it, but I did not feel the normal desire to not put my book down and just keep reading. I would have been fine if I got interrupted. During the first half, there was not much happening besides Alina learning about her powers. That was the part that kept me interested during this part of the book. Almost everything else was slightly boring. Like I said though, this really changes for the last half. The last half was definitely me thinking in my head that if anyone interrupted me while I was reading I may throw the book at them for revenge. I was 100% invested in the second part of the book, and it made the first part well worth getting through.

    As always, I appreciate the map that is included in the beginning. I like this map even more than normal though because ti has some cool features like drawings of some of the creatures readers see in the book. I also REALLY liked that the author included a page to lay out the three orders in the Grisha, their names, and the different powers within each order. This was very helpful in keeping track of who can do what while reading. It was a very good reference page. The bonus material (letters and interview) were also a nice addition. I liked being able to read the letters Mal wrote because it made me understand and care about him more. The interview was cool for the simple reason that it allowed me to see into the author's head a bit. The book cover is also absolutely gorgeous and I love it even more because it is meaningful.

    Overall, I would recommend this book if you can deal with tropes and a less interesting first half. It definitely proved worth the read to me, and I am glad that I picked it up. I enjoyed it. I am excited to see what happens next and have a gut feeling this series will get better with each book.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Publisher: Square Fish

# of Pages: 356

Genre: YA, Fantasy

Series: Shadow and Bone Trilogy (Book 1)