The orphan no one wanted would change the world and be adored for it.
Shadow and Bone
by Leigh Bardugo
Genre: YA Fantasy
About: The hundred year old war has made orphans out of many children; Alina and Mal are just two more, but to each other, they are their whole world. Friends since childhood, they join the army together and enter the Fold together (a shadowy realm full of monsters where few make it out alive). In the deathly shadows, things change. There, they save each other's lives and Alina's power bursts out of her. She isn't an ordinary orphan - she's Grisha, with one of the rarest powers of them all - one that just might be enough to destroy the Fold and end the war.
The Good
The is a breeze of a book to read. The writing flows easily, the world is super interesting and it's very fast paced, never really stopping on any one moment for too long. Everything is told in Alina's POV so there are things we miss (the war is spoken about but not really experienced, Mal disappears for a large chunk of the book, and although we're given a tour of the Little Palace, Alina doesn't interact much with other Grisha and hardly at all with the royal court). This though, I think is in a way a good thing as while it limits the story, I've read Leigh Bardugo's other famous novel Six of Crows and I didn't actually enjoy all of the POV characters so I think having one POV in this book made it easier to get into and I found myself racing through it. I really enjoyed Alina's journey. The descriptions of the powers were excellent and all the little world-building details really pulled me into the story.
The Bad
The romance and the villain aspects of the novel are very teenage. It is a YA book so, like, duh. But I feel it's especially noticeable with the TV series having come out and improved on everything I felt this book lacked. Alina is far too passive in the book, while in the show she actively pushes her own story forward. Also we miss out on so much of Mal's story that her romance with him doesn't read as well as it does in the show. And the Darkling is a very basic, cliche villain: beautiful but evil, in love with her, but using her, a tortured soul who she just can't help but feel a pull towards... Overall, there isn't a great deal of depth to any of the characters beyond surface level. Everyone is beautiful, unless they're old, and Alina is hyper focused on her romantic life - the war, her powers, potential friends, they're all side things to the men in her life.
The Somewhat Iffy
Mal is not Grisha and yet the books suggest he has some kind of unique tracking power. This was actually something I wish the show would have pointed out as it came as news to me that this is a special skill of his. Mal in the books is very different from the show and while I prefer the show's version for many reasons, I am interested to know where this talent comes from because the books suggest some kind of magic is involved, only it isn't Grisha powers? A confusing point that maybe is answered in the subsequent books. Also the show made far more sense on why Alina wasn't found out to be Grisha when she was originally tested.
Overall
I liked the book. I preferred the TV show. It's an easy book to read but probably more addictive the younger the reader as the romance aspect isn't done with a lot of depth but is such an overwhelming focus. I would have liked more friendships or intrigue with other characters beyond romance as while I enjoyed Alina, she really gave a sense of skipping over life and it's kind of a sad role model.
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