Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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.

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There are probably endless with reviews explaining what this book is about and if you are a reader of YA you have probably heard about this before. So I will just go straight ahead to what I think about this book.

Shadow and Bone is a great book...if I was perhaps 15-20 years younger (yes I am old and picky) girl that for instance never had read any books by Robin Hobb. But now since I'm old and since I have read Robin Hobb, well that means that YA books like this, never really get that interesting. Mainly because I think the book lacked any depth both to the characters and to the world. That doesn't mean that the book isn't any good. I liked it, liked it quite lot in the beginning, I even thought that it would get a 4-star rating the first 1/3 of the book...but then it just lost steam and suddenly it was down to a stable 3-star rating instead. Which isn't bad...but I was hoping for a greater story. I wanted to be blown away by it, to love the characters, to immerse myself in the world. But I did not.

But that is just me. In the end, none of the characters really stood out for me. None did I really like. I mean I love dark characters (professor Snape is my favorite character in Harry Potter and I adore Darth Vader) but the Darkling? Meh! Boring and honestly a bit of a boring name/title.