Review: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Published: June 5, 2012
Publisher:  Henry Holt and Co.
Pages: 368
Series: The Grisha Trilogy #1
My Rating:  3 of 5 stars

Synopsis: Alina Starkov doesn’t expect much from life. Orphaned by the Border Wars, the one thing she could rely on was her best friend and fellow refugee, Mal. And lately not even that seems certain. Drafted into the army of their war-torn homeland, they’re sent on a dangerous mission into the Fold, a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh.

When their convoy is attacked, all seems lost until Alina reveals a dormant power that not even she knew existed. Ripped from everything she knows, she is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling. He believes she is the answer the people have been waiting for: the one person with the power to destroy the Fold.

Swept up in a world of luxury and illusion, envied as the Darkling’s favorite, Alina struggles to fit into her new life without Mal by her side. But as the threat to the kingdom mounts, Alina uncovers a secret that sets her on a collision course with the most powerful forces in the kingdom. Now only her past can save her . . . and only she can save the future.

My Review: I think my expectations were way too high. I feel like I'm the only one who didn't fall in love Shadow and Bone. I just couldn't. If I had rated this book while I was reading it I would have given it one or two stars mostly because in the beginning I almost gave up on the story a few times. I picked up this book expecting to love it and I finished it unsatisfied.

So the main character Alina is an orphan and she's like really really ugly. Or at least that's what I was told every other page in this book. I was constantly reminded that Alina was ugly and that Genya was just a beautiful Grisha and that all Grisha were beautiful. When Alina finds out that she is Grisha she denies it because she isn't pretty enough. What? So you have to be drop dead gorgeous to have any kind of power? I would have been ok with Alina being insecure about how she looks but when Genya offers to help her look better she flat out refuses but she still continues to complain. So Alina doesn't want someone else to make her look better but she still wants to complain about how hideous she is (even though I really didn't picture her hideous at all).

That was basically the first half of the book. She did some training here and there but I found it quite boring.

Then about half way through the book Alina discovers how to summon the light and she magically becomes beautiful. For me that's when the story actually started to get good because she was no longer complaining every other page.

If it hadn't been for the last 100 pages this book would have gotten two stars instead of three. So yes there was something I actually really enjoyed about this book. Mal and Alina traveling together and the part with the Stag were the best parts of the book. It made me want to read the next one and I will indeed be reading the next one.