On The Fence

“It was time to let go.” Truth.

18.13 Shadow and Bone

So I loved parts of this as I read but after sitting with it a few days there are more and more things I didn’t like – and I hate (as usual) that it is another unfinished trilogy and so lost all of its steam at the end.

Characters –

The Good:

I love that Alina feels a sureness in her power – not like it is natural or outside of herself, but a thing she feels right about.  

It isn’t really clear who is good or bad, and it totally works.

The Bad:

Everyone is far too concerned about how they look.  This is a fantasy for goodness sake, can’t we leave the reality out?  Essentially she gets plastic surgery and this is skeevy for me.

I wanted to know more about the royal family. *To be fair, this may come later.

World Building –

The Good:

Original.

I like that it is allowed to unfold naturally instead of being explained ad nauseam to the reader.

Not a lot of back story.

The Bad:

Not a lot of back story. *Yes, this is both good and bad. 

There are a lot of different places mentioned but I don’t know why I should care about any of them.

I need a bit more about how the Grisha rankings work.

The Plot –

The Good:

The endless travel scenes plugged right along and I didn’t have to hear about every berry they tried to eat or fire they started.

The Shadow Fold seems like a genuinely scary thing and the bad guy is pretty bad and yet a bit logical.  Intriguing.

The Bad:

I read it two days ago and haven’t thought about it since, or thought of picking up the second book.

I finished reading the book and the story isn’t over.  I am honestly so tired of this.

Overall, I will be back, but I may wait until it has all been published.  Curses to the trilogies and my OCD to finish things I have started.  *See, I always bitch about it but also end up buying all the books – damn you capitalism.