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Shadow and Bone
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Shadow and Bone Feb 2021
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Breanna
(last edited Feb 05, 2021 12:13AM)
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rated it 4 stars
Feb 01, 2021 07:25AM
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Have you all finished the reading? I just finished and I need to rant with someone lol
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Yes.
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From the prologue, I was hooked. I don’t know what it is about books that start with showing the characters as children, I love it. I guess I love the juxtaposition between the innocence of childhood and then the harsh realities that the characters face throughout the story (especially in these fantasy books).
Chapters 1-5. I read this in a continuous stream, unable to put my book down. I found myself eager to find out what was going to happen next, learn more about this new world, and understand why the book had been given so much ‘hype’ in the first place. Unfortunately, I’m a hopeless romantic, when it comes to books that is, and I found myself imagining first Mal and Alina together – and if not romantic, a strong platonic bond from growing up with each other. Then, I imagined Alexei and Alina, but they did seem like good friends, and well, if you’ve kept up then you know what happens there. Then there was the Darkling – tall, dark, and mysterious – how could you not wonder? Anyway, I still love Alina and Mal (although I don’t think it will ever happen…). I hope Mal joins Alina at the palace because they are just so adorable. They way he straight up lied to this all powerful guy.
I don’t know about you all but, “I’ll meet you in the meadow” broke me.
As the first look into the Grisha Verse I am excited to see where this book goes!
YES TO ALL OF THAT! I already can't wait to see Alina and Mal's reunion I was worried he was gonna die for a second there and I definitely had a tear in my eye when he said "I'll meet you in the meadow" and it was sad seeing what happened to poor Alexi :( he seemed like her only other friend and I really like their relationship and the little of what we saw of him.I really loved how we saw Alina & Mal as kids first and a little bit of how they grew up then as soldiers in the army. It's really interesting learning about the world so far and I can't wait to see more. not gonna lie tho the grishas in the tent when everyone was being questioned kinda pissed me off. like these people just survived a horrible ordeal and your gonna laugh at them? wtf? ALSO WHEN THE DARKING SLICED THE ASSASSIN IN HALF OMG I was shocked. I'm also wondering what the romance in this is gonna be coz the darkling is all dark & mysterious & I'm very interested to learn more about him but I also love Mal? on the other hand I wouldn't be mad if Mal and alina ended up platonic I love their relationship. maybe another character will come into play? guess we'll have to wait and see. I wonder if we'll see the Duke now that she's in the city? that would be kinda interesting. I'm also curious as to that last line about locking the door...
random things: I loved the authors note. and the line break flower illustration there's also something about this quote that it just won't leave my head "I guess its easier to have a lot in common when you're kids'"
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Right? They were so pretentious. Shows that there is definitely a power hierarchy/class difference in the book. I didn't think they would all be snobby like that.
Yeah when the creature took Alexei, I knew the book wasn't scared of killing characters and I kept going back and forth between Mal and whether they would kill him or not. I'm glad they didn't!
The body slicing, love that Alina couldn't get it out of her head and the Darkling was like 'you've seen so many things today and you can't get THIS out of you're head'.
Ooo that could be an interesting turn of events, meeting the Duke again. The prologue didn't really go into his character and how he interacted with all of the orphans. Even if they see... what's her name, was it Ann I think? And how they would interact with her.
Omg yesss the “I’ll see you in the meadow” had me BAWLING my eyes out because I am a big baby and the whole thing is just amazing and I’ve read wayyyy farther than I was supposed to for this week because I just couldn’t put it down!!
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There is so much good stuff and I’m so glad that I didn’t see much spoilers or anything for this book because the story line and plot is wow
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Sameee the only thing I knew going into the book was Mal’s name and that the book was getting a Netflix series 😂
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Wow lets talk about it. So I couldn’t put the book down reading this entire section. Hello new world building. The Little Palace, the king and queen, all the different kinds of Grisha. The Grisha seem to be so out of touch and so classist.
I love Genya so much. The way everyone looks down on her hurts me so much. And the king! Don’t even get me started on how much I dislike the king. Ew. Genya is so sweet, I hope she sticks around. I wish someone could get rid of my dark circles!
The way Alina was like ‘not black, blue’ was hilarious. I thought she might have gotten white kefta to juxtapose the Darklings ones. (Unless another Grisha’s robes are white? Now that I think about it, were the door holders wearing gold and white…) AH I just tried to look it up online and I got a small spoiler. Yikes. Stay away from the internet when reading am I right? Anyone else want Alina to just sneak into the Darkling’s wing like ‘SURPRISE’ because that would be hilarious.
Okay the ‘priest’ guy, he is so sketchy. I got bad vibes from him the moment he was introduced. Maybe he is a spy? From the other nation.
Zoya seems very cruel. From the tent scene to all of the times we see her in this section. I hope Mal didn’t get with her. When she broke the rules to purposefully hurt Alina in the training. Ugh. Speaking of Mal, I hope he is alright. Why isn’t he responding to her letters? Maybe the Darkling is stopping them from being sent… I’m sure they aren’t getting to him.
The scenes with Baghra and Botkin are amusing. Poor Alina, she’ll make it one day.
Got any thoughts surrounding why Alina wasn’t picked up as a child? I know in the prologue Mal and Alina gave each other a look that basically said, we won’t leave one another and we won’t show them anything. What if Alina somehow sealed her powers away? Crazy theory – but what if Mal sealed them away? What if they don’t manifest like normal grisha powers?
This quote: “I’d lived in Keramzin most of my life, but I’d never felt I belonged there. And even after a year, the same had been true for the King’s Army. The only place that I’d ever felt I belonged was with Mal, and even that hadn’t lasted. For all her beauty, maybe Genya and I weren’t so different after all.”
I love pronouncing names while reading because a lot of the time, it turns out that I have been pronouncing it wrong all along. I tried ‘Jen-ya’ but then I thought no I like ‘Gen-ya’. How have you been pronouncing it?
P.S. I’m still waiting for Mal content :’(
Yessss you literally got down everything I was thinking about the week 2 chapters!! I knew Zoya was going to be a pain but omg I got so mad when she did that to Alina during training!!! But Botkin my man I was so happy when he stood up against Zoya for Alina. I can’t wait to see how he is in the Netflix series because even though he isn’t a main character he is one of my favorites lol. Pronouncing names is so fun because there is always different ways they are being pronounced, I am currently taking a linguistics class for college so I can put what I’ve learned to use for pronunciations and for why I say the word how I do lol, I say Genya’s name like this Gen-yuh I really pop the ‘ya’ part when I say her name lol. The rest of the names aren’t that difficult but I feel like even though they aren’t that difficult to say I’m saying them wrong😂 especially Baghra I say Bag-ruh and I’m really curious if I’m saying it correctly lol
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Chapter 12, wow, I loved this chapter. When Alina finally accesses her powers properly. I knew that she had somehow hid them to stay with Mal. That was really sweet, I love them so much.
Ch 13 - okay so when he just out of the blue kissed her, I was like wait what. That was out of no where. I didn't know how to think. I did get bad vibes from it though.
Ch 14 - the suspicions about the King, I want to murder him, he is actually disgusting. Poor Genya. Aww the Duke didn't remember Alina :( I thought for sure that Mal was going to appear at the party for some reason. He did appear! I knew that if he did, they were probably going to have a disagreement. But man, did it hurt! The miscommunication was real with these 2.
Ch 15 - WHAT the Darkling wants to do what?! I knew he was shady. I was like there has got to be a reason, aside from the killing, that people think he is evil. I knew I liked Baghra. I can't believe she is her mother. I love her character so much!
Ch 16 - This quote hurt me. "I won't murder my own son." "But you'd betray him?" "I would save him." Aww :'(
YES Mal is back baby! They better make up because I really love the two of them.
Page 247 - that is such a hard thing for a person to ask. When Alina asks Mal to kill her.
Page 250 - funny when they were joking about him chopping her head off
Page 258 - it only took 258 pages but they finally kissed. My little romantic heart is loving this.
Okay so when Alina was walking towards the white stag, the page before the Darkling comes and shoots it. I turned to my friend and ranted about how the Darkling was going to appear and kill the stag and capture them. And when I turned the page I actually yelled. Not annoyed that it was predictable, it was still amazing. But I was so sad. I thought that maybe Mal was going to actually die.
The ending, WOW. That was intense wasn't it. I am glad that Alina got away from the Darkling. I know a lot of people like him, but he just isn't doing it for me. I am glad that Mal is not dead.
The short story with Genya, I actually started crying. She burned all of Alina's letters. It was so sad.
Very excited for more world building, the next book and more character developed all round. I know that we scheduled to have finished the second book by now but I am just starting it now, haha. Hopefully I can speed through it.
