Shadow and Bone

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha…and the secrets of her heart.

1. Story  – Getting Into It (6) I don’t have a Russian background and this is a strange almost fairytale type world. Add the two together and it took a little longer than I hoped to get into this one.
2. Story – Staying Interested (7) The story is interesting and I enjoyed it. The only problem is that it was really predictable to guess what would happen next. I like surprises but everything here screamed predictability.
3. Story – Finish (7) It ended well and I will be interested to see how the story progresses.
4. Characters (6) Stupid main characters drive me crazy and when the book is so predictable I assume the main character must be dumber than me if they could not see it coming. The characters are fine but I don’t love any of them. Some of the minor characters were actually my favorites and I’m interested to find out what happened to them.
5. Writing (8) Bardugo writes a good story that is easy enough to follow even though it has strange Russian references to me. Her only drawback is the predictability.

Overall a 34/50 or 3.5 rating from me. Leigh Bardugo has written a good story and I will be excited to read the next installments.  Other readers may enjoy this book even more than I did, perhaps I was just really lucky at guessing what would happen and others would not be annoyed at predictability.