Shadow and Bone

Title:  Shadow and Bone

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Publisher:  Square Fish (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure

Length: 356 pages

Synopsis:  Ravka is a country at war.  For the last hundred years, battles have raged at the borders, and even with the help of the Grisha, those with fantastical abilities to manipulate matter through their use of the Small Science, there seems to be no way to bring an end to the fighting.  For Mal and Alina, the war is just another fact of life.  Orphaned by the battles, they had nothing when they came to live among the other war orphans at Duke Keramsov’s estate, but they found in one another the comfort and companionship they needed to survive.  For Alina, childhood friendship has begun to grow into something deeper as the two set out to serve together in the First Army, while Mal seems more interested in the beautiful Grisha girls that attend the charismatic Darkling, leader of the Grisha Second Army.  But when a terrifying encounter in a land of perpetual darkness known as the Shadow Fold reveals powers she’d never imagined she possessed, Alina is sent away from Mal to train among the Grisha.  Alone and afraid, she soon finds herself trapped in a web of political maneuvering orchestrated by the Darkling himself.  Her powers could hold the key to bringing about the end of Ravka’s suffering, but is she willing to pay the price?

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion: There’s a lot about this book that I like.  In fact, most things about this book I enjoyed.  It’s a beautiful departure from the more typical western European underpinnings of most fantasy.  Set against a fantasticized Imperial Russia, the glittering world of the Grisha and the war-torn borders make sense together while still providing a stark juxtaposition for one another.  The world is richly imagined; Bardugo knows everything about this place, from court fashions in dress to the rationing pattern of sugar.  Occasionally, the details feel almost excessive, but usually that serves to highlight the excesses of the royal court.  The characters, on the other hand…  I felt the world Bardugo has created deserved a little better.  I didn’t want Alina to be another YA heroine sucked in by the alluring and apparently immortal tall-dark-and-handsome fellow.  I wanted Mal to be as complex and multilayered as Alina seems to believe.  There are peripheral characters that show the kind of exquisite nebulosity of which Bardugo is capable: Genya, the Queen’s pet Grisha, whose true allegiance is hard to fathom, who buries her real feelings beneath the perfect mask she’s created of her face; David, the Fabrikator who provides weapons both for and against our heroine, whose actions still make sense in the context of his world.  I wanted the main characters to have these same shades-of-grey struggles, to get a sense that there’s more to them than love triangles or conquer-the-world plots.  But the richness of the world and the other characters gives me hope.  I’m going to hunt down the next title in this trilogy, Siege and Storm, as soon as I can!

Shadow and Bone