Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Shadow and Bone

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

52 reviews

sea_sea's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

It was a very good book! I loved the Darkling and Alina banter. xD It was a very easy and fast read. I was done with it in a few hours. :>

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rwilcox's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

The female protag lacks agency until the very end. Other than that little fact, it was an amazing plot with well developed characters.

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thebookaddict's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

It is an amazing book and you will read it at a quick pace. I absolutely addored it and can't wait to read the other parts 😯

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zhaenya's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

(started reading this right after finishing s&b s2) wow, i really just love grishaverse and everything in it. the netflix adaptation is great and did so many things right (and some things better) but i don't think i realized how much time was actually passing when i was watching the show. here, time really feels like it's moving, but unfortunately they didn't have the luxury to take their time in the show, things just had to keep going. in some cases it was a good thing, in others it really wasn't. i just can't believe it took me so long to actually sit down and finally start reading the books, it's about time.. i have this bad habit of watching movie/show adaptations first before looking for the original. but this time around, i think i don't regret waiting, if i read the books first i feel like i would be a little underwhelmed by some of the things but now the book just provided me more context and showed how things were originally. some things i didn't like, like alina having less agency in her choices (this one is a big one), mal wasn't as bad as everyone described him to be but maybe i just haven't seen all of it yet, so i guess we'll see how i feel about him by the end, i still find him quiet boring though; and some things i liked a lot more here, like having genya around more often and seeing her friendship with alina, and her actually talking about david, and baghra's interactions with the darkling too (now THAT i wish we could've seen in the show more), and just darkling being horrible, manipulative and scary in general, there's not enough of that in the show. other than that, very good! i can love and appreciate both at the same time now and that's exactly what i'm going to do!!

though it will never not be weird to me, as a native russian speaker, to see so many russian names and terms (often misused but that's not that big of a deal, it's a fantasy after all, it just makes me smile)

favorite chapter: 22, it was so satisfying to see alina take control of her own power and use it so save herself and mal, and not just using it but LIKING it, that's exactly what i love to see!

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trintrin's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I read the Six of Crows duology before this because everyone said the Grisha trilogy was not that good, that Alina was a boring protagonist, that they all hated Mal, that Malina wasn't a good ship, and that Leigh's writing wasn't as beautiful as it is SoC blah blah blah. So I trusted them all and read SoC first. Now I regret skipping this wonderful story. It has all the amazing elements of a fantasy novel that I had forgotten I love so much. You could say it has the typical YA fantasy tropes but it's done so well, and since this is one of the OGs I'll give it a pass.

I don't understand why people love to hate on Mal, I found him perfectly fine. Maybe a little possessive at times but nothing other than that. Apart from the fact that Alina needed a man to feel like she belonged somewhere, I didn't find anything wrong with her either. And I finally understand the appeal of the Darkling lol although I don't really ship Darklina.

The world-building is so rich and that's why I wish I read this before SoC because so many things that I previously found confusing suddenly finally made sense to me, I felt like I opened a third-eye or something. I really loved seeing the fantastical side of the Grishaverse rather than just the heist-y side. I'd love to read more about the Grisha folklore, the Saints and all that good stuff.

As for Leigh's writing style, it's certainly not as breathtaking as I know it would be in her future books but it's still pretty solid. The first person POV felt weird for the first chapter but I got used to it after that. Her story-telling is still very good. This was certainly a page-turner, I binged it in one day and the only other book I'd binged in one day is Crooked Kingdom so it's all very fitting :D

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onefineelephant's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

7/10. I think the magic system and even the political system are interesting. However, I usually hate love triangles and this is no exception. I typically love the friends-to-lovers trope but Mal kind of sucks at the beginning. Like, who would sleep with a ton of girls when you're actually in love with your best friend the whole time?? I like Mal more by the end. Also, them confessing their feelings wasn't satisfying at all and fell kind of flat. I think that the character of the Darkling is super fascinating and complex, which I love. I am not a fan of Alina which is really unfortunate because she's the main character - but this is because she is TOO MUCH of a main character. She just wants to fit in when she clearly is unique, she is a peasant in high society, she only has one friend and doesn't get along with other girls (aka she's not like other girls), and she won't kill when it is absolutely necessary. The dialogue is kind of so bad that it's good. Like it's very bad but most of the time it made me laugh because of how bad it is instead of making me say "this is stupid." The ending was awful, in my opinion. I know there are more books in the series but the events of the last 50 pages made me say "what the f is this?" about 8 times.

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juliaaaaaa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

i needed to see more about how mal fell for alina, but it was a bit quick and i NEED the slow burn.

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makenna_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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katischuo's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Good, fast read but predictable.

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kat_andherbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

it's 6 in the morning, I haven't slept and I'm bawling my eyes out over Mal's letters. given that it was written in 2012, I'll cut it some slack, but Alina is wayyy too predictable for my liking. I hate the typical love triangle with the best friend and the bad guy, she's giving off big pick me energy. I love Mal, he's really sweet and he definitely deserves better. Alina's narrative is too tiring for me, her inner monologue seems repetitive and it's tiresome.
I'm not as eager to get into the next book as I'd thought I would be :/

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