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Shadow and Bone (Shadow and Bone, #1)

Leigh Bardugo

Start date: September 1, 2017

Finish date: September 30, 2017

Discussion: Read

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What Members Thought

Nov 06, 2015 Tor.com Publishing added it

If you put a morally ambiguous guy who wears all black & has darkness powers in your book, odds are high that I'll like it. The flavour & depth of worldbuilding are what take this to the next level. A Keith Thompson map is just icing on the cake, at that point. --MK ...more

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Dec 24, 2019 Zara Arshad rated it liked it

Shelves: got-sucked-into-their-world, kick-ass-girl, good-start-bad-end, fantasy, assasins

I first read this book's 100 pages (till Chapter 10) some 4-5 months back and then stopped reading but after learning that I was horribly behind on my to-read list for 2019 (I'd barely read 3 books all year, out of 50) I wanted to start reading again and this was the one I picked up to continue.

I first read the standalone series Six of Crows by Leigh Burdago back in 2017. After surprisingly enjoying that story a little too much, I wanted to give her other works a try. Back then in 2014, I first I first read this book's 100 pages (till Chapter 10) some 4-5 months back and then stopped reading but after learning that I was horribly behind on my to-read list for 2019 (I'd barely read 3 books all year, out of 50) I wanted to start reading again and this was the one I picked up to continue.

I first read the standalone series Six of Crows by Leigh Burdago back in 2017. After surprisingly enjoying that story a little too much, I wanted to give her other works a try. Back then in 2014, I first tried Leigh's writing and ended up reading the short story The Witch of Duva and didn't really like the gist of it so I dropped wanting to read Shadow and Bone then. But after hearing that Netflix had opted to make this book into a series I decided that I had to check it out. I finally got round to reading it and today during my winter vacation, I ended up reading it in one sitting from Chapter 11 to 22.

My thoughts on the story:
The story is set in a land called Ravka where special people with powers exist called Grisha and are enrolled in the army to defend their land against wars with other nations. There's a girl whose rare gifts are discovered by accident and she turns out to be the Chosen One they've all been waiting for. She's taken away from her old life and her best friend/childhood love Mal, and put into the custody of the mysterious Darkling, who's the only one of his kind just like her. The story goes that his ancestors created the Shadow Fold, a land of darkness, that had divided the nations and to reunite them all they need Alina to destroy the Shadow Fold and the monsters, volcra, that lurk within.

Spoilers
The author plays with the innocence of Alina and leads us to believe that the person who smiles at us and bring us a sense of comfort can be trusted. That's where the story goes off, when we as readers are lulled in the security of the Grand Palace, with its warm beds, the cozy friendship of Genya, and the pull of the Darkling, we find out things aren't as they seem. It was like waking up from a happy dream and smack into reality.

Alina is forced to run away from the Palace in order to save herself from becoming Darkling's slave and letting him use her powers for his selfish gains. He wants to expand the Shadow Fold's range and spread terror onto those who refuse his wishes. The Darling ambushes Alina and Mal at the sighting of the ancient stag. He then uses its powerful stags as Amplifiers to control Alina's powers. Once in the Shadow Fold, when Darkling orders Mal to be thrown to the volcra as food, Alina's powers come to her aid and she ends up fleeing the hold of Darkling with Mal and they find themselves on the other side of Ravka.

The ending was a bit underwhelming and was like any other cliched story but I had a lot of fun reading it. I know for a fact from the Six of Crows series that Alina ends up destroying the Fold so I know how this ends but I'll read the next book soon enough. ...more

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