Review: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Title: Shadow and Bone
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Series: Book One in The GrishaTrilogy
Published By: Henry Holt & Co. (June 5, 2012)
Source: ARC Provided by the Publisher
Genre: YA Fantasy
My Rating: 5 Stars

Goodreads Description:
 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.

My Review:

  It is funny sometimes how you can pick up a book and after only a few pages you can tell that it will just be one of those books that people will either really love, or really hate.

A book that can cause a whole slew of emotions in someone. Sometimes hateful ones that leave the reader with an off feeling and then those feelings on the other end of the spectrum that leave the reader with a smile of their face and that joyful feeling you get after finishing a really good story and wanting more and not sure what you are going to read next because, how could the next book even compare to this one?

I have no idea what causes this to happen but it seems like some books are just that way. I think Shadow and Bones is just one of those books.

Thankfully I fell into the latter category of being able to say that I truly just enjoyed this book. Maybe not absolutely loved it, but I thought it was a pretty dang good read.

Like a lot of first books in series there is a lot of world building and character shaping and sometimes things that are just left unsaid and unexplained, maybe to be explained or said in later books and this one is no different. It has these issues, it isn't perfect.

But what it is, well hard describe actually. Like some many others who have read this book, it is just really hard to say what makes this book so awesome.

Maybe it is the characters or the original storyline. Maybe it is the tension and action throughout. The mystery of who is really good and who is really bad. Or maybe, just maybe it is all the author. Her way of making the words just flow together beautifully and fly right off the pages.

The imagery or the world she created. The magic there.

I don't know, sadly I can't put my finger on what makes it great. Strange I know, me the talker at a loss for words.

But I can say this, you should give this book a try. Yes there is a 50/50 chance with the whole love hate thing it seems to have going on but if you like mystery and magic. Beautifully writing, a well developed plot and a series that I think holds a lot of promise that I think will only get better as it goes, this is a book you need to read.