The Shadow and Bone Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo
Soldier. Summoner. Saint. Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold - a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed. Now Alina will enter a lavish world of royalty and intrigue as she trains with the Grisha, her country’s magical military elite - and falls under the spell of their notorious leader, the Darkling. As threats to the kingdom mounts and Alina learns that not everyone around her can be trusted, Alina unlocks secrets of the past that could threaten everything she’s ever loved and her country as well. Plunged into a civil war, Alina must figure out who to trust, and learn to fight for everything she believes in while facing countless horrors.
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This book has been all over Bookstagram for years. I’ve seen it, I’ve heard about it, I've rolled my eyes and scrolled past it but I haven’t read young adult fantasy in a very long time so I've avoided it. And I’m now just realizing how much I’ve missed this genre. I finally picked up the books because Netflix has made it into a series and I CANNOT watch a show without having read the books first (bonus: Ben Barnes is one of the main characters). So I finally decided to give it a shot. It’s now a story that sits close to my heart that I’m sure I’ll reread at some point. The world building, the characters, everything was fantastic. It did take a bit for me to be fully invested but once I was, there was no pulling me away. I now have no choice but to continue my goal of reading my way through Leigh Bardugo’s entire bibliography!
This story follows the common narrative of the unknown heroine who finds unique powers and ends up being the last hope/the chosen one/ etc etc destined to save the world or die trying. But even though this series follows a very common young adult fantasy trope, it was extremely unique. The world that this was set in, the magic that existed, it was all something completely new to me that I had never read before. I LOVE when a book can interest me in new types of magic (I read a lot of books with magic, it’s hard to surprise me anymore). I felt completely invested in the fate of Ravka and Alina and her band of friends. When I finished the book I felt like I was ripped away from another home.
The things I liked are almost endless. As mentioned above, the world building was magnificent. I haven’t felt this immersed in a fictional world since books like Harry Potter, Narnia, and Lord of the Rings. That, to me, is an amazing accomplishment, it’s hard to create such an interactive world inside your readers’ imaginations. The folklore that a lot of this was very loosely based on was some of my favourite, I love Russian lore and it was very reminiscent of The Bear and the Nightingale while still being it’s own entity. The characters were some of the most well-rounded that I’ve read in a while. I did have some issues with Alina for a while, felt a bit indifferent to her, but by the end she became a piece of me. I truly cared who lived and who died. Let’s just get it out now, Nikolai Lanstov was my absolute favourite character, he doesn’t get introduced till later on but the wait is worth it. His cockiness, his leadership, his Jack Sparrow-esque entrances, they all won me over, head over heels. And the villain!!! The Darkling was such a great villain. I understand why people are so obsessed. No I didn’t fall for him - he’s a literal terrorist - but I loved him as a villain, I truly and deeply wanted him destroyed. I love when you have a truly bad villain, where, even with their tragic backstory, it’s hard to find sympathy to excuse their horrible actions. So rare in a novel but I loved it! I haven't hated any character so much since Cersei Lannister!
Not everything was perfect with this series however, but if it was then maybe I wouldn’t love it so much. I absolutely loathed Alina’s character development, she was so bland in the first book, very spineless for a majority of the second, and all of a sudden she’s a fearless leader in the third. Her transition from a nobody to the most important girl in the country in her own mind was very glitchy (I can’t think of a better word than that). Sometimes she was impossibly brave, sometimes she was ready to lay down and die and give up. I get that it was maybe an attempt to make her character more realistic, but it fell short for me. Mal’s character got the short end of the stick. I feel like he’s this books Ron Weasley, he does stupid boy things that frustrate us, isn’t the strong heroic love interest that we want, but he’s truly a good person. I liked Mal, but I don’t think the story did him much justice, there was so much more potential there.
The first book was enjoyable, the second book took a long time for me to get through (I’m not really here for the military tactics, I want action) but the third book absolutely stole my heart. The third book, Ruin and Rising, absolutely wrecked me. And now, I have no choice but to buy hard copies of the book (I read on my e-reader) so that I can flip to my favourite passages and visit them over and over. If you’re looking for a great fantasy world to escape to, this is the series. This is it. 4.5 stars.