#nikolai im kind of 50/50 on because he could have been done BETTER but it wasnt atrocious the way some characters were

[grishaverse-chaos]

characters I am STEALING from eric whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is and any other producers/showrunners from s&b:

ALINA STARKOV (they can have her back if they do a good job with her in s3)

inej ghafa. seriously they didn't show her trauma at ALL and I'm SO mad about it. also killing tante heleen off screen!! what the fuck!!

n i n a z e n i k. that girl had ZERO personality beyond matthias in the show and I'm pissed about it

zoya nazyalensky. they really just made her a one-dimensional mean girl with no nuance, no personality beyond her aunt - which YES is an important part of her character but there's so much more to her than that!!!

i already said alina but I'm stealing malina as well. they did okay with mal as a character but malina's ending??? no. no stop that.

JESPER FUCKING FAHEY. again they barely showed his trauma and they flattened him into a comedic relief character (again, they can have him back if they do better in the spinoff)

genya safin. they didn't fuck with her character I'm just stealing her so I can give her the good things she deserves instead of the ENDLESS PAIN the show gave her

david kostyk!! I'm stealing him and resurrecting him

[forthisone]

Shadow and Bone Trilogy Book Review

Long, rambling, sometimes-capslock thoughts on the Shadow and Bone trilogy, having just a couple of hours ago finished reading the trilogy of Shadow and Bone, Seige and Storm and Ruin and Rising.

MALYEN ORETSEV IS TOO PURE FOR THIS WORLD AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

Fair warning: Major spoilers for the whole series and ending, entire focus on Mal/Alina 😅 I apologise for nothing.

I THINK THIS MIGHT BE THE FIRST TIME I’VE EXPERIENCED A SHIP I REALLY LOVE HAVE A HAPPY ENDING. Hooooooly shit. It feels good.

😭😭😭

Leigh Bardugo really served up everything I want to see! Give me all the tropes! All the angst! All the longing! AND with a happy ending?! *chef’s kiss*

I’m shook.

It feels amazing that for once in my life, something I ship has finally finished front and centre and I am absolutely here for it!

So let’s first clarify that I went in to the books just after finishing S1 of the Netflix show, already head over heels in love with Mal/Alina and rooting for them the whole way through. They are the reason I read the books. In the stories that I enjoy, I value love above all other aspects of the story; it’s just who I am.

The Pain of Siege and Storm

I admit, about 50% of this trilogy and the majority of Book 2 and early Book 3 was me in pain just wondering why they couldn’t be together and why they kept pushing each other away. Book 2 was an emotional rollercoaster ngl. I was frustrated that they spent so much time being miserable around eachother but were never allowed to be happy or give in to their feelings? They are best friends. Mal wants to support her. LET HIM SUPPORT HER. Let her confide in him and find comfort in him.

Endgame? Not Endgame?

This went on in a similar vein for some time and towards the end of Book 3, I was getting increasingly worried they weren’t endgame and this was indeed all leading up to Mal ultimately sacrificing himself... which obviously did happen...

But when Alina says “Bring him back to me.”, I just thought “THANK YOU. VINDICATION. THIS IS WHAT HAPPINESS FEELS LIKE.” and I knew we were home and dry and my god it felt good.

But I was so happy with the ending. It’s exactly what I wanted to happen, though I didn’t expect it... AND THEN IT HAPPENED. For them to go back to how they were and live the rest of their days in quiet happiness. Neither of them asked for this. They just belonged with eachother.

The last line of the book:

They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things - if love can ever be called that.

HAPPY SIGH. YES.

More on this below.

People hate Mal?!?

I... don’t understand why so many fans apparently don’t like Mal. ?!?!????!? I had heard this before reading and went in to the books with trepidation. I was waiting for him to do something awful to justify the hate and... it just never happened. Is it just the way he behaves in Siege and Storm? Because I do accept he is slightly more problematic in the books than the show but Y’ALL KNOW HE WAS ONLY IN THAT PIT OF DESPAIR BECAUSE HE FELT LIKE HE WAS LOSING HER. She never really reassured him that much, if anything she confirmed his fears (from his pov anyway). And he was right to doubt her, because she was doubting her feelings too in secret, and he could feel it.

BUT. But he accepts it in Ruin and Rising. He grows into it. He accepts they can’t be together as they are. And he still stays, only to protect her, to keep her safe. He never asks for more than that. “You are my flag. You are my nation.” Roast me over a slow fire.

You will never, ever convince me not to root for the childhood best friend who loves her unconditionally and knows her better than anyone else and will die for her and will spend the rest of his days just being close to her, to protect her, even if that’s all he ever gets. This is the hill I will die on.

And then she comes back to him. 🤧🤧🤧

The Love Square

So, in terms of love interests for Alina:

Mal >>> Nikolai >>>>>>>>>>>>> Darkling

Wasn’t a fan of the love square here. I understand if she has feelings for different people, I respect everyone’s right to ship what they want, but I honestly had whiplash. One second she’s “in physical pain” missing Mal, next she is “drawn to” the Darkling, then wants to kiss Nikolai. I’m extremely monogamous and that’s probably why all this chopping and changing just felt really jarring to me.

I liked Nikolai as a character but I valued their friendship and I just wanted their relationship to remain platonic. I’m happy with how his storyline ended too. I hope he’s okay!

Mainly I did not understand why she was still drawn to the Darkling after all the loved ones he slaughtered in front of her. Fuck him, honestly (Ben Barnes I still love you though).

But this line near the end kind of summed it up for me, I guess:

Merzost. Darkness. You could hate it and hunger for it at the same time.

But I no longer care about any of this because my ship was endgame, baby! 😭😭😭

The Finale

I am glad Mal become more “important” in the end. That there was a magical bond between them. (I feel a little dumb I didn’t see it coming that he was an amplifier, because I did clock on to the jolts of light that happened when he grabbed her wrist and thought it was foreshadowing something).

I like even more that they agreed they would have found each other despite it.

“Maybe that brought us together, but it didn’t make us who we are. It didn’t make you the girl who could get me to laugh when I had nothing. It sure as hell didn’t make me the idiot that took that for granted. Whatever there is between us, we forged it. It belongs to us."

I was waiting for the scene in the conservatory the entire time and it was so perfect! Worth the wait! I can’t wait to see the aesthetics of it in the show. The flowers, the greenery... the lanterns. It was so pretty in my head!

I could pretend I wasn’t a saviour or a Saint, that I could simply choose him, have a life, be in love. That we wouldn’t have one night, we would have thousands.

It was a perfect ending for me really because I got both the angsty hero-sacrifices-himself-for-protagonist-and-greater-good scene AND the happy ending. I’ve honestly been spoilt 😂 My shipper heart has never been so satisfied.

The actual plot of the ending was a complete blur and I have no idea what happened other than Alina lost her power and the Darkling died and... some other people became light summoners? I think? I was so focused on whether Mal would live or not I couldn’t really process the rest! I will have to reread.

It’s a shame that Alina no longer has her power and that Mal lost some of his tracking skill in the end, but... I’ll take it for a happy ending where they spend the rest of their lives together as equals. It’s not like Mal stole her power from her. They both made sacrifices and in the end, they still won.

The shrieks of the volcra erupted around me as the Fold began to unravel. It was a miracle. And I didn’t care. The Saints could keep their miracles. The Grisha could keep their long lives and their lessons. Mal was dead.

I love that most of the book is all about her feeling the pull of her powers, feeling changed by it, drifting from Mal… but in the end, when it’s all done and over, she doesn’t care. She wants none of it. She chooses him. She wants him back. This is what I was waiting the whole series to read, honestly. Love conquers all, baby.

I just love that there were all these passages about their love not being possible because “they weren’t the same people any more” and the boy and girl from the orphanage were gone... and yet, it ends with the boy and the girl at the orphanage. Just like how it started. It's so obvious to me now that the whole story was about THE BOY AND THE GIRL. Every Before and After. It was right there all along.

THANK YOU, LEIGH BARDUGO.

My soul can now die happy.

I thought it was a really beautiful story.

Would happily reread. Will happily reread.

Im definitely going to continue with the other Grishaverse books too.

Can’t wait for more of the show because I’m honestly in love with the casting and this pairing and this series. Please, please, God, let it be renewed, and with the same cast, and covering the whole trilogy!