Book of the Week
By Millie the Bookie
Contributor
Shadow and Bone
Leigh Bardugo
5 stars
Ah, the book that started it all. I have an extraordinarily strong bias for Leigh Bardugo and Shadow and Bone; I own every single one of her books, and the first was Shadow and Bone. There was a time I hated reading, surprising, I know. One super random day, my friend dragged me to a bookstore. I very literally went, “Ooh, shiny,” and grabbed a book. When I tried to read it, I saw the crazy fantasy made up words and closed it. One year later, I got incredibly bored and here I am today.
Now, to the book. Shadow and Bone is well-loved, was adapted into a Netflix show, and even well-hated on occasion. It’s the perfect combination for a good book. Give it a chance. Come on, you know you want to. It did fine on Goodreads: it was nominated for Best Young Adult Fantasy but didn’t win; so sad. This is a seven-book series split into three sub-series. Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising, then there’s Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, and finally, King of Scars and Rule of Wolves. You can read either the Shadow and Bone trilogy or the Six of Crows duology first; it really doesn’t matter. However, you have to read both before King of Scars.
An indisputable chef’s kiss of Shadow and Bone is the characters, particularly the villain! Young Adult Fantasies often fall into the “bad guy bad cuz” trope… but not Shadow and Bone! Oh, no, no, no, I have never seen a more complicated, motivated, human, gorgeously written villain in a book. Okay, maybe that’s a lie. There are many amazing bad guys in books, but this is one of them, and I have a flair for the dramatic/over exaggerating.
Most of the criticism relates to the apparently generic fantasy plot, with the “chosen one” trope. But it doesn’t read that way. Leigh Bardugo uses the “chosen one” model but shifts it completely to give us an exciting, eyeball-grabbing story that had my thirteen-year-old self wrapped. Oh? You think it doesn’t hold up because I read it when I was 13; try me! I love this book so much I’ve read it more than once! (I acknowledge that I’m biased)
What makes this book truly my favourite is that it was the first. I implore you to read it, everyone needs more adventure, more escape, more wonder. Life is so boring, isn’t it? Read a book, or two, or five. I’ll always have recommendations, whatever you need. Note: I just want to say thank you to everyone who read this and the last issue. I love to see that what I write is being read; it’s kind of crazy. Even if you disagree with my rating (cruel prince, yeah, I’m talking to you), I just love talking about books so much, and that includes some healthy debate. I’d also like to apologize, I was really hoping to keep up the 4-book format, but I’ve been told off by those who oversee the paper for writing too much, so sad. Since I can’t write as much, MIO me at Amelia Béland if there’s a specific book you’d like to see rated! I’d love to hear what y’all think.