Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Shadow and Bone

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

202 reviews

baileyk113's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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? Yes

3.0

I really loved the ideas of this book, especially the Grishaverse. However, I do have some qualms with the book.

1.) It felt like I was speed running the entire book. Every change of scenery and situations felt very abrupt and not fully explored. For example, I was so confused when Baghra told Alina to run. Perhaps this is a reflection of Alina’s life: never constant and always changing. I can get that, but this just felt too abrupt.

2.) Like some plot points, I thought some characters were underdeveloped. I wish we got more insight to Genya’s life, maybe a dramatic betrayal of trust/allegiance. Her losing her servant status just felt half-assed. I also think, if there were a betrayal, it would further Alina’s complexity as a character. Anyway, I also felt Mal was so underdeveloped. Like one minute he’s a playboy and the next he’s described as brooding. He gives the reader a tiny glimpse of what happened but I was just waiting for more. Also wish there was more indication that the Darkling was going to be evil—I wanted to guess and not just read dialogue from Baghra that he was evil. I guess I did connect Baghra to be his mother, but I could foresee him being evil from that.

3.) Alina’s powers are cool but I wanted them to be more badass. I was very happy when she managed to do The Cut at the end.

4.) I was expecting Alina to be more important in the last scene of the fold??? Like, she was used to create a path and then the Darkling just manipulated The Fold on his own???

5.) also, I didn’t like how long it took for the world building to happen, specifically around the explanation of the magic. Maybe I was missing it or forgetting details between my sporadic reading, but I felt like it took forever to understand all the different types of Grisha. I had to look up an article to fully understand who was in what group of Grisha and why.

Interesting story, not the best executed. Hoping the next books are a bit better.

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aliyachaudhry's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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bentobookdragon11's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious sad tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

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fa1ry_222's review against another edition

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adventurous funny inspiring medium-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? Yes

4.5

love this book!!

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liminalnotes's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.75

I might have come into this with bias knowing that these books aren't that great or at least, not as great as the SOC duology. But yeah, this was a bit difficult to get into. The contrast of coming from SOC and its extremely lovable characters to this with its 'meh' characters was too much. Still, having watched the Netflix adaptation made it easier to read through and it was interesting to see the differences from the show. I did like maybe one or two characters and I was intrigued by some of them, but not to a great extent. Still, did I enjoy reading this? Of course. I loved getting to know more about the Grishaverse and while I might take a break before continuing the series, I'm still looking forward to reading the rest of the books.

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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Decidedly on the okay to meh spectrum..

The world building and magic system is interesting (if not semi-lazy with the quasi-Russian culture) but the characters are flat and one dimensional. I was waffling on whether or not to continue the series but the idea of what comes next from the main character's POV doesn't thrill me so I'll probably look up what happens instead.

It's bizarre that the main character starts out as an orphan from war (roughly 8 years old), and seems mature beyond her 17 years by the time the main story arc starts (she is an apprentice cartographer in the army), and then regresses into angsty teenager drama full of petty, juvenile, and shallow plot points because of a chosen one trope?

Lastly, the romance was bad. Both dudes are controlling and manipulative, want to possess her, don't actually care what she wants. Think of any high school romance drama and you will understand the tropes thrown in this book. There's literally a glow up/makeover scene (multiple times actually because they want to emphasize how much she's changed from the 'skinny-but-not-in-a-hot-way' person she was before).

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