Shadow and Bone (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable. Oh, and sorry I fell in love with you for a while there. Make sure to write!

I think Alina shares my sense of humor and she uses it the same way I do—as a way of facing the darkest, most difficult times. The more I've written, the more comfortable I've gotten letting my characters be funny, though they're funny in very different ways. Nikolai loves wordplay and the absurd. Kaz's wit is as sharp and bitter as Nina's is joyful and audacious. But I confess, I may have written a note very much like this to my junior high school crush. It's hard not to look back and feel a soul-deep cringe. Anyone else made a fool of themselves over a nerd in braces? Just me?