Personal Rating: 4.99 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.07 Stars Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee. Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling. Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart. (goodreads.com) Scary monsters, super powered people, weird fantasy country that resembles Russian/is Russia with magic, snarky and hilarious heroine - what’s not to like? Sure there are a few parts that I’ve seen dozens of times in YA fiction, like the almost love triangle and the “chosen one”, but for the most part this was original and wonderful. I apologize in advance for the total lack of professionalism in this review, but I’m still in fangirl mode from this book and I finished it over a week ago. It was just so good and unique and interesting and wonderful and my heart feels like it’s going to explode with all of the emotions this book (and later the whole trilogy) gave me. Excuse me a moment whilst I fangirl. Ahem: Aaaaaaahhhh!! O. M. Goodness! This book killed me, but it made me so happy and sad and scared and giggly and uuuuuuuggggghhhhh… why did I already finish the series? Why couldn’t I have saved some for later? Now I shall perish. Oh wait - there’s a spin off series. But when that’s over I’m gonna fall down dead! *more strangled noises of emotion* So anyway, I really did enjoy this book and I found the characters to be dynamic, the plot to be complex enough to intrigue me and simple enough for me to not feel lost. The world building was spot on and the whole story had a beauty and deepness that even the most difficult critics could surely appreciate. I never thought I’d like this book as much as I did. I checked it out from the library once and started it a little bit, but I had other books I wanted to read and I didn’t think it would actually be something I like and I thought it would be too much work to figure out the setting and the world it was in, so I returned it to the library. Then I went back to the library, shrugged, picked it up again, and forced myself to start reading it. Then I stayed up way past my bedtime, forced myself to go to sleep eventually, woke up, and finished it that morning. Then I tried to start another book, but Alina and Mal and the Darkling and the plot were all still swimming around in my head so I immediately dropped the book I was trying to read and biked to the library to get the next two books in the trilogy. I then finished those books in the course of two days. Now, I know there are a lot of people who do not like this series, and they have their points, but I personally loved it (though it also kind of felt like three bullets being shot into my heart). If you read it, you don’t have to love it, you don’t have to hate it, you can think it’s “meh” if you want. Think what you like, this review isn’t really a review, it’s just me saying how much I personally liked this trilogy. On to the other stuff: This book did have some more mature parts in it. For this reason I’d give this book a fourteen and up age recommendation and if you really can’t stand innuendos and a few awkward scenes, I’d advise you stay away. There are some blush-worthy, turn-the-page-now parts, but for the most part this first book is okay. The next two books have some more I-want-to-close-my-eyes-but-it’s-a-book parts, but if you focus on the plot and skim the stuff that gets to be too much for you then you should be fine. The characters are really great. I’m just saying. Many people point out, and are kind of right, when they say that Alina is your stereotypical YA heroine, but for some reason she stands out to me. I like her better than I like Tris Prior (Divergent), Mare Barrow (Red Queen), America Singer (The Selection), Cassia (Matched), and pretty much every other teenage girl that I’ve read about. I like that Alina is genuinely witty with her comebacks, that she isn’t afraid to make some friends, and that she actually goes through character development in the series. Another character who I didn’t really like in this book, but was great by the end of the series is Mal. He’s kind of lame in this book, except toward the end, and then he becomes really awesome. It’s obvious how much he cares about Alina even when they’re fighting and he goes through a lot of development as well. The last character that I absolutely have to talk about is the Darkling. I can’t say too much without spoilers, but he’s a really interesting character in a creepy, I-want-to-run-away-but-also-give-him-a-cookie-and-a-pat-on-the-shoulder sort of way. Emphasis on that creepy bit. Even at the end of the series I’m not sure if I hate or pity him. Sometimes I want to smack him, because he is more often than not, the cause of those awkward scenes I mentioned, but at some parts he’s also my favorite character. I hesitated to write that down because I don’t feel like being pegged as one of the crazy fangirls who falls for the dark sinister types (the Darkling’s fangirls are called the Darkling’s Darlings and that kind of makes me gag and also the fact that he has fangirls), but he is a great character. One complaint a lot of people seem to have is that the world building isn’t good, but I thought it was perfection - of course I’ve read the whole trilogy now and I’ve spent a significant amount of time in this fantasy world, but I still thought it was fantastic. I’m coming to realize that I’m not a great person to judge world building abilities because whatever the author doesn’t flat out say about the world I usually just fill in from some of the other details and my imagination, which isn’t always to most accurate. So yeah… don’t trust me when I say world building is perfection because that’s just my opinion. Considering the amount of feelings I have about this book and the length of this review, I probably should have waited until this book was more out of my head and I could judge it properly. Oh well. I hope I didn’t scare you off forever. Thanks for reading my long rant about how much I like this book. Sorry if it was long and… rant-ish. Haha. Anywho… if you’d like to you can leave me a comment about what you thought or a suggestion for another book to review or a suggestion for how I can become a better blogger or whatever you want to say. I’ll see you around, chums! Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10194157-shadow-and-bone?ac=1&from_search=true
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