Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

I am VERY much of two minds about this book. 

On the one hand: this is an addicting novel that reads SUPER quickly.
And the other: I’m not sure I really cared much about the people? Or really understood the world much. 

Frankly, I expected to completely love this book. And if you know me you might have criticized my inexhaustible ability to have the book I just finished be my fav book ever. I am the type of gal that has a spreadsheet to keep book data where I add a 6th star (sometimes a 7th) if I really really loved a book. And I am kind of bummed I am not the most jazzed ever about this book. 

First, I don’t really care about the Darkling. Why do people love murderous dictator types? What is romantic about enslavement? We should really look at the way we present love to people if that is genuinely sexy. I also have the problem with a lot of YA where if we are too close to the evildoer we sort of notice that their level of evil is sort of 14-year-old appropriate evil, which sort of undercuts evil in some ways. And it really allows for evil to seem not that bad. And currently, I don’t want to have positive feelings towards fascism even is the fascist in question is apparently sexy. You might respond to this by telling me to read adult fantasy and unfortunately a bunch of that kind of has a similar problem, and I like reading books written by ladies and there is less secondary world fantasy written by ladies in adult. But I do need to read more of it I guess, but this is a massive digression. 

My brain drew so so so many parallels to the Hunger Games books while I was reading this. I have no idea if Leigh Bardugo was inspired in any way by the Hunger Games series (or even if she read them, though it was 2012 and it was pretty hard to not read them) but my brain kept being drawn out of Ravka and to Panem. Obviously not by the world really, mostly by the characters and specifically by the interactions between our hero and her 2 (1.5?) love interests. And it’s not a direct parallel or anything but I thought about it enough that I thought I should include this too. 

Again, I know this book was published in 2012 and I have heard good super feminist things about Leigh Bardugo, but so much of Alina’s self-worth seems to stem from how she looks and it isn’t really presented as a problem. She is both judgmental of those who value their own beauty and deeply obsessed with her own. And unless my reading comprehension is the worst it didn’t really seem to me like that was deftly done commentary. But maybe it was but it has aged poorly? This was also in the era where ‘special magical only girl who is important’ in the world was always beautiful but didn’t realize it and also weak basically all time but not really because she is so strong of heart and does manage to punch someone to show her growth. It was very 'pit the girls against each other’ almost always. Which I obviously find overdone. Because it is.
But I didn’t hate this book. 

I liked Alina in a lot of ways. I thought she was empathetic and funny and sharp. I loved that combination, I laughed at about a quarter of the things she said. It really was quite a funny book. 

I mostly liked Mal. I’m always down for grand gestures and competency. And I hardcore love a solid friendship. It does seem like Bardugo is setting up this series to keep them together which is nice because friend who also loves you tops evildoer who is sexy. In my humble opinion. If the Darkling was a little more that person from Warcross that it is too spoilery to name I might have more interest in him. I know very little about his backstory, why would I like him? I am just so stuck on this because I could tell I was supposed to like him. And I liked him a little at the beginning but was quickly not feelin him. 

Also, Baghra is the character I wanted so so so much more from. We barely scratched the surface of her character but I wanted so much more so badly. I really feel if this book had like 50 more pages that were backstory and world building sprinkled throughout the book this would have been amazing. But I just didn’t feel all that attached and I was confused for far too long. I am still baffled about the magic, and not in the fun cool puzzle way I felt with the first half of Truthwitch. I just don’t understand all the different magic options. Or why a lot of them are useful. I just needed more world building. 

Back to positives. This book is very well plotted, I was very compelled to see what would happen next in a very odd way. I was confused. And I only really liked three characters. But I wanted to read more. (Also disliking the Darkling made me interested in what he was doing, I was just annoyed when I thought I was meant to be liking him.) This book is very readable. 

I adored the first ¼th of this book. I especially loved the prequel and that mystery really fueled me through the book until it was resolved. 

The writing is so solid. Again, it is so readable. The prose is basically clear, you just see through the words to the story and she did it very well. I flew through this book. It took me three days to read this book but I read it in three chunks, the last of which was like 200 pages. And I am genuinely excited to read the next book. I have heard too many amazing things about Leigh Bardugo to not still be excited to read Seige and Storm. It is literally 4 am and I sort of want to read Seige and Storm and not sleep. I won’t but I wanted to convey that I am genuinely interested in this plot and in the author.

I gave this book three stars on Goodreads and finished reading it on December 13th, 2018.