Shadow and Bone: Week of 4/7/14

*Spoiler Alert*
Page 0-294
Discuss why you like or dislike what you are reading.
How have your feelings changed as you’ve been reading?
What does this book remind you of?

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo in my opinion has been nothing but unpredictable and absolutely flabbergasting. This book in my opinion is just absolutely frustrating, yet I still enjoy it. I believe my frustration begins with the obscured love interests in the story. In the beginning we meet the main character, Alani, and her best friend Mal. Mal also happens to be her crush, yet he doesn't seem to notice his best friend fawning (vocab word) over him. This is the hook, in my opinion, of the story, your average soppy love story of being friendzoned. If this was not enough later on in the story, the author leads you to believe the possibility of Alani ending up with another person. This person being the Darkling. (If you can't tell by his name, he's a bit of a bad boy.) If that was not enough, the exasperation continues. We then find out that the Darkling that we thought our beloved Alani would end up with, is the antagonists of our story. I simply can not explain the amount of frustration I face while reading this book, yet I still really enjoy it. Please do accept my apology for my lack of eloquence this week, I sincerely am aggravated with this book. Never the less, I have enjoyed my reading of Shadow and Bone.

Throughout the entirety of the story my feelings have changed drastically. This reading is truly an emotional roller coaster. In the beginning I questioned the book, seeing as the only books I had read that were placed in a medieval setting with wizard like people was The Demon King and the rest of its series by Cinda Williams Chima. The book has made a change in my opinion on some of these books, which I view as a positive thing. Along with my questioning I have a felt an extreme feeling of fangirling. As explained in my previous paragraph there is a big confusion between the love interest of the story, like a love triangle. A love triangle always calls for favorites. Along with this my view on the characters has changed. Especially the Darkling. In the beginning we are deceived and made to think that he is a good person, yet he turns out to be the bad guy halfway through the book.

My reaction when I found out the Darkling
was a malicious Grisha.

In my opinion the book carries several strong similarities to The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima. Both books carry a magical essence. In Shadow and Bone there are Grisha which are like the wizards in The Demon King. Along with the magic, the book is also set in a kingdom type setting. In both books there is some type of royalty ruling the area. The biggest similarity in my opinion would be the romance between the characters. In the Demon King, Raisa is split between Micah Bayar and Hans Allister. In Shadow and Bone, Alina is split between the Darkling and Mal.