Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Over a year ago I marked this book as “to-read” and was fortunate enough to find a promotional deal on Amazon for the Kindle edition. Purchased and stored on my nifty little reader, I kept it safe until I felt ready to read such a gripping and gritty tale, since up until the end of chapter 1 I still had complete different expectations about this story. I must have confused it with another book that I considered reading around the same time, because I was convinced the story dealt with demons and other unworldly beings that spew green slime, hence my need for such long mental preparation before embarking on this journey. Then at about 20% through the book I thought this might turn out to be a story that resembles “Harry Potter” meet “Mean Girls” as I was still struggling with letting my old expectations of the book go. After finally having succeeded in doing so, I was completely and utterly invested in this amazing story.
The writing was excellent. It flowed perfectly without the author’s attempt to include awkward sentences in order to sound sophisticated or intelligent, the author let the story speak for itself. I was surprised how easy it was for the reader to lose oneself in the story of high fantasy and be many pages further along in the book without spending much time reading or rather working through the pages as it can be the case with some high fantasy stories.
The characters, from the protagonist to the secondary characters, were perfectly created, containing depth, intrigue, individuality and enough mystery to keep the reader guessing of their true intentions. The main character was a pleasure to get to know; fleshed out and multidimensional, possessing human character traits that make her easy to identify with; maintaining the true self of the character throughout the entire story.
The plot was also very good, with a few twists that kept the reader surprised and guessing until the end. Even though this story is not really listed with the other young adult fiction novels under “Romance”, there exists a small portion of romance that tugs at the heart strings just the right amount. It is beautifully constructed and adds to the overall journey the reader embarks upon while immersed in this story.
Overall, after getting over my initial confusion about the nature of this story, I was completely hooked. I used the word “perfect” quite a few times during this review, mainly because it was a perfect story. It was a great adventure to read, since it had me in its grip from the first page to the last, feeling with the characters. I would absolutely recommend this book and will most certainly finish the trilogy.
