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A review by lenoreo
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
4.0
https://celebrityreaders.com/2021/04/28/shadow-and-bone-by-leigh-bardugo/
4 stars — Well that left me a whole mess of confused and conflicted and overwrought.
I started off listening to the audiobook with this one. And honestly, Ms. Fortgang was solid. She had clear voices, good pacing, emotions. But…I kept finding my mind wandering. And after awhile I figured it just wasn’t working for me, and I got the paperback — and my reading went a lot faster then! I will say that a) it was nice to hear her pronounce most things, so I had a feel for it when I went to reading; and b) her Darkling voice was so smooth it was almost creepy…which is kind of apropos.
I loved a lot about this book, but there were also elements that were only okay. I found that because the world is so complex, I occasionally wanted more information and had a hard time getting sucked in immediately. I wasn’t huge on the age old “everyone is beautiful except me” aspect. I get now that there was a bit of a purpose behind some of that, but there was a lot of time spent talking about everyone’s looks and appearance, and at the time I was listening to it, I just wanted them to move on to something more interesting.
Alina was wonderfully sassy and sarcastic. I enjoyed her dry wit. I thought there was a good balance of her fear to her fierceness. I didn’t quite always get the whole picture of why she would deny her powers until much later, and that also left me not as sucked in until that point in the book.
Mal comes across kind of flat at the beginning, and I wasn’t sure how things were going to progress with him (or if he was even that important). And I was surprised at his level of anger initially. He came across a bit like a dick. But between the moments where he finds her and the end, I totally fell for him. The letter from him that was included in the bonus materials at the back of my paperback also helped ENORMOUSLY.
And then we have the Darkling. *sigh* I both love and hate complicated characters. I want more clear cut, I want to KNOW FOR SURE what the truth is…but I also think it’s more interesting when they have more dimensions. Regardless, I’m not a fan at the moment. I think it didn’t help that his “voice” in the audiobook was just this side of creepy.
Lots of interesting secondary characters, quite a few of which now leave me conflicted. Gonna be interesting to see what happens with all of them.
And then there’s that ending. Wow. Didn’t see that coming. In fact, didn’t see a few of the reveals coming. Gonna have to move on the next book real quick!
4 stars — Well that left me a whole mess of confused and conflicted and overwrought.
I started off listening to the audiobook with this one. And honestly, Ms. Fortgang was solid. She had clear voices, good pacing, emotions. But…I kept finding my mind wandering. And after awhile I figured it just wasn’t working for me, and I got the paperback — and my reading went a lot faster then! I will say that a) it was nice to hear her pronounce most things, so I had a feel for it when I went to reading; and b) her Darkling voice was so smooth it was almost creepy…which is kind of apropos.
I loved a lot about this book, but there were also elements that were only okay. I found that because the world is so complex, I occasionally wanted more information and had a hard time getting sucked in immediately. I wasn’t huge on the age old “everyone is beautiful except me” aspect. I get now that there was a bit of a purpose behind some of that, but there was a lot of time spent talking about everyone’s looks and appearance, and at the time I was listening to it, I just wanted them to move on to something more interesting.
Alina was wonderfully sassy and sarcastic. I enjoyed her dry wit. I thought there was a good balance of her fear to her fierceness. I didn’t quite always get the whole picture of why she would deny her powers until much later, and that also left me not as sucked in until that point in the book.
Mal comes across kind of flat at the beginning, and I wasn’t sure how things were going to progress with him (or if he was even that important). And I was surprised at his level of anger initially. He came across a bit like a dick. But between the moments where he finds her and the end, I totally fell for him. The letter from him that was included in the bonus materials at the back of my paperback also helped ENORMOUSLY.
And then we have the Darkling. *sigh* I both love and hate complicated characters. I want more clear cut, I want to KNOW FOR SURE what the truth is…but I also think it’s more interesting when they have more dimensions. Regardless, I’m not a fan at the moment. I think it didn’t help that his “voice” in the audiobook was just this side of creepy.
Lots of interesting secondary characters, quite a few of which now leave me conflicted. Gonna be interesting to see what happens with all of them.
And then there’s that ending. Wow. Didn’t see that coming. In fact, didn’t see a few of the reveals coming. Gonna have to move on the next book real quick!