Book Review: "Shadow and Bone" by Leigh Bardugo

The great battles between Good and Evil are part of the quintessential appeal of fantasy books. But that much-loved trope needs to be presented in new and exciting ways to keep us intrigued and actually wondering which will triumph this time: darkness or light?

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo offers all this and more, with some of the most creative and engaging world-building that I've read in recent memory. The dream in Ravka is to be discovered with a magical talent and taken to join the Grisha, a collective of sorcerers who form Ravka's Second Army. But orphans Alina and Mal, raised in the same home, have no such powers to help lift them out of their harsh life in the First Army. But while he is making a name for himself as a talented tracker and ladies' man, Alina remains a relatively untalented cartographer without much promise for greatness.

But all that changes the day that their company is sent through the Shadow Fold, a band of dark magic that spreads across the middle of Ravka, bisecting the country. Despite the protection of the Grisha, parties passing through the Shadow Fold are often attacked by the horrific creatures who live there in the dark. When that happens to Alina and Mal's group, a long-dormant power bursts forth from Alina, catapulting her into the world of the Grisha as a hero, as the key to banishing the Shadow Fold, and as the pet of the most powerful Grisha of all, the Darkling.



The evolution of this great story feels truly natural, with a nervous and out-of-place Alina becoming accustomed to her new life of combination hard work and luxury. She catches herself enjoying it even as she guiltily thinks of Mal, how he was left behind when the Darkling spirited her away to the capitol. Alina experiences rites of passage like new friendships, old aches, misplaced emotions and self-discovery, all while working with the Darkling in search of an end to the Shadow Fold. I felt like I was there with her every step of the way, learning and actively wondering what the ultimate outcome would be.

I'm usually pretty good at guessing who the antiheroes are in books like this, but at least partially because I was so invested in Alina, I was totally blindsided by the big betrayal here. I was honestly upset by it, which also served to feed my connection with Alina as she tried to find her way out of the nightmare her life had just become. But by the end of the book my heart was mending right along with Alina's in a turnaround that was fast but genuine, with no forced feeling at all in the writing or between the characters.

The only disappointment for me came when Alina was trying to find away around the device controlling her power toward the end of the story. Without giving away too many details, the person who betrayed her seems to have an unbreakable hold on Alina's unique magic. It looked like such an impossible situation to escape, my mind was teeming with all sorts of ideas, plans, and speculation about how things would turn around. The simplicity of the answer really did help underscore the separation between good and evil, but it was also a bit disappointing compared with some of the ideas that my imagination had cooked up in the suspense.

Shadow and Bone and its sequel, Siege and Storm, are available right now, and the final book in the trilogy will be released in June. To illustrate how excited I am about these books, I'll tell you that I already have my copy of the third book pre-ordered! If you like City of Bones, Divergent, or other dark, intrigue-heavy fantasy, you'll want to pick up a copy of Shadow and Bone right now. You can do that at your favorite local, independent bookstore.