Book Review: Shadow and Bone

by Leigh Bardugo

I’ve gotta say, I had really high hopes for this book but sadly it fell flat for me. I think the concept was amazing but the execution kind of sucked. The author created such a cool world but I didn’t really get any of the depth or detail I wanted to out of it. The author didn’t transport me. I was interested enough to keep reading but I wasn’t THERE. I never felt like I was apart of the world the author created. 

I also thought that the plot moved both way too fast and too slow at the same time. Events happened quickly but I was bored of them all the same and I got the feeling that there just wasn’t much to look forward to on the next page or the next chapter. I felt like there was a lot of missed opportunities in this book in regards to the plot and I felt the same with the characters. 

The characters had so much potential to be awesome but they were just plain boring. I want characters that drive the plot not characters that sit back and let the plot happen to them. And sadly, all I saw was the latter. The main character wasn’t the strong female lead that I craved. Also, I couldn’t get a feel for any of their personalities, you could put anyone in these roles and I would believe it because none of the characters actually had any character. The Darkling was the only one that came close to having some depth, but again, there was so many missed opportunities in the story to actually show it. For example: the author would tell me a character was falling in love with another, but I didn’t want her to tell me, I wanted her to SHOW me! I wanted to feel it!

I’m still unsure if I’ll read the second book. There’s a lot left to happen and I am interested in where it’s going but I may take a break and read some other books in the meantime. Maybe I’ll return to it another time. 

I will, however, be watching the show on Netflix because, like I said before, great concept! And I have high hopes the Netflix show will be able to execute it better. 

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