#for alina's character... which then would not make her alina! whom i find fascinating and delicious <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[malinaa]

LMAOOOOO ur right they are boring. If they got together s&b wouldn't have even had a sequel. It would have just been them in the Little Palace the plot wouldn't have moved forward, literally nothing would have been going on if they were together, just Alina summoning her power sometimes and the Darkling smirking with his stupid windswept hair. Most bland ship on God 🙏

god i almost forgot about the show for a min fr like okay they get together halfway thru s1 and miraculously alina isn't betrayed / horrified by the darkling's plans and then what?? no amplifiers bc mal would disappear from the plot and he's the best tracker they've got and he'll leave if he knows alina is happy, and also miraculously baghra doesn't think her son is too ambitious and that his plans for the world are so so right etc etc and then what? the darkling and alina expand the shadow fold? and alina is fine and normal with that?

[bronzewool]

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo is the first book in the Grishaverse universe, a fictional world based on Russian folklore where certain humans, called the Grisha, are born with the ability to manipulate matter in creative ways.

Alina Starkov is an orphan drafted into the First Army as a cartographer alongside her childhood friend Mal, a tracker, whom she has unrequited feelings for. Their unit is sent on an expedition into the Shadow Fold, a mysterious cloak of darkness that has split the country in half and cut off all communication with the eastern border while they are in the middle of a war with a neighboring country. No light can penetrate the Shadow Fold and anyone who dares step through the Fold is torn to shreds by monsters.

Their unit is attacked almost immediately and just as Mal is about to be killed, Alina awakens her hidden Grisha powers, revealing herself to be a Sun Summoner and rescuing Mal and their entire unit with a powerful burst of light. Word quickly spreads of Alina's dormant powers and she is put under the tutelage of the King's Second in Command, The Darkling, a Shadow Summoner who can amplify the powers of other Grisha. Separated from her unit, she is sent to the palace to train alongside other Grisha students who are learning to control their powers to help the ongoing war effort. While struggling to replicate that same power again, Alina is swept up in the politics of the different Grisha classes and may be developing feelings for the Darkling who is the only one who sees her hidden potential.

Shadow and Bone was a big disappointment for me, mostly because I only heard about the premise and thought the book would go in an entirely different direction. I initially assumed the main hook of the conflict was Alina, a cartographer, having to undertake the difficult task of trying to chart out a route through the Shadow Fold when she can't see what's in front of her and monsters will swarm them if they so much as light a match. This initial premise fascinated me because I wanted to read how the party would navigate the Fold, how would they communicate with each other, defend themselves from enemy attack, what else was waiting for them inside, and what has become of the Eastern territory?

Instead, it becomes yet another YA superheroine, coming-of-age story where the protagonist is taken away from the front line and must instead attend magic school in order to master her power of light manipulation to destroy the Shadow Fold for good. There's nothing wrong with the plot, I was just more invested in the comradery of young troops in Alina's unit than in her snobbish classmates who are so separated from the conflict they are blind to the horrors Alina's friends are facing.

Alina does make a few friends at the palace, bonding with a tailor who has the unique ability to change the appearance of other people just by using different materials and is looked down upon by the other girls. Her most important relationship however is with The Darkling who becomes a constant source of encouragement, and who Alina has conflicting feelings for after Mal doesn't return any of her letters.

The pace is quite slow in the first half as we follow Alina's time at the palace and her struggling to summon a ball of light for a good chunk of the book, but picks up again in the second half when shit hits the fan and Alina must run away.

Overall, I just didn't find the book that compelling plot-wise. The plot twist was obvious (oh no the guy who can manipulate shadows and is literally called The Darkling is responsible for the giant magical shadowy veil that has split the country in half...who could have possibly seen that coming?) and the characters just aren't that compelling. Even the magic school is underwhelming and I don't see anyone developing a die-hard fanbase over which colour cloak they'd want to join and what powers they would have. It's kinda basic.

The only thing it had going for it was the "Let us rule together" dynamic of our hero and villain who have the perfect Light/Darkness motif going on. If evil immortal dudes simping over virtuous young heroines is your ship dynamic then you will get something out of this (spoilers: she picks the childhood best friend >:/)

Rating: 3/5