Series review – The Shadow and Bone Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

Shadow and Bone – 3/5
Siege and Storm – 2/5
Ruin and Rising – DNF at 100 pages, 1/5

Happy Valentine’s day!

Welcome to the review where I (kinda) tear down everyone’s beloved series. Ready for it? Let’s go.

This year, I decided to retry some books. A very long time ago, I decided to give Shadow and Bone a try. Got, maybe, a chapter into it, hated it, and put it aside. I relegated it to me hating it. Then, I decided to try Six of Crows and DNFed it. I thought it took too long to get to and these ~amazing~ characters everyone fawns over just weren’t there.

Flash forward to me the first weekend of February.

I decided to, basically, binge this whole series.

Started, like, Thursday or Friday on Shadow and Bone. Finished it Saturday. Sunday, I read most of Siege and Storm and finished it Monday morning before practicum. Ruin and Rising, I tried Monday night and finally called it quits.

I was seriously unimpressed by this series.

Where was my kickass female MC? Oh, she was too busy crying and pining over literally every single male character.

Where was the cute Mal? Oh, he was too busy being a dick and angsty.

Where was the awesomeness of the Darkling? Oh, he was too busy doing other shit for, literally, most of the books.

Where were the great plots? Oh, they were too busy being consumed by horrible pacing. It took basically all of book one to get to the point. Basically, all of book two to get to the point. And, then, I gave up on book three because, like everything I’ve read by Bardugo, it takes forever to get to.

As the series got on, it got worse. I thought that the first book had a solid story there and some serious promise. I mean, I skimmed a lot because I didn’t care about the characters. I just wanted to get through the book.

Then, the second book came around. The pacing was worse. It took mere pages for them to find this whole thing they were going to hunt. Then, it devolved into political intrigue, Alina being attracted to three men and wanting them, and then Mal’s angst that made me want to kill myself.

What I’ve come to realize from this experiment is that I don’t like Bardugo as an author. Her pacing is some of the weirdest I’ve ever seen. To me, it’s a lot like Schwab. Tons of great ideas and explosive endings, but when you reflect on the book, you can’t figure out what really happened in it.

I can tell you right now that anything she writes within the Grisha universe, I’m not touching. Zero interest in it. I thought that if I enjoyed this series — even if I read all three books and thought they were okay — I’d give Six of Crows another try. However, I don’t want to experience her world ever again.

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February 14, 2019February 4, 2019 by bwreviews Categories: caidynTags: book blog, book blogger, book review, dnf, DNF review, grisha verse, leigh bardugo, series review, ya fantasy 14 Comments