A review by catmac15
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Is it my favorite book in the grishaverse? No, not really. But is the book bad by any means? Definitely not.

I think the show does a good job of picking up the pace of Alina's time at the Little Palace while still acknowledging the struggles she went through staying there (ex. loneliness, dealing with her newfound power), the first like 200 pages of this book are kinda slow and just consist of Alina adjusting to the change of setting [at the Little Palace] but enjoyed the last 50-100 pages more because that's where a lot of the action was
and when Alina leaves the Darkling and everyone else on the ships, that's when Alina begins to question herself morally, to me that's when I truly to saw her character development come to light
 

It was cool to see how the first season of the show compares to this book; I honestly think any changes the show made from the book were good ones.  I did read the Six of Crows duology before starting the Shadow and Bone trilogy so I know that Bardugo does end up writing the other books in the grishaverse as multiple POVs; this book would have been better to me had it been written in different POVs (ex. Mal's, Darkling's, Genya's), luckily the show does add those different POVs in (and it adds a lot more to the story).

Overall, I think this Shadow and Bone is a good book to start to the grishaverse with; it's just not my favorite book by any means. 
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