Shadow and Bone (The Books)

As a full-time university student and part-time procrastinator, I don’t have a lot of time to read books for pleasure. Any time I am inclined to pick up a book for leisure, I feel guilty knowing that time could be better used to read academic resources, watch lectures, or work on assignments, not to mention all the menial tasks that come with adulthood: cleaning, grocery shopping and meal preparation, working in order to afford the rent… Regardless, the moral of the story here is that from September to May, I don’t read. Not for fun, anyway. Every summer, though, I read until my eyeballs are popping out of my head. I read early in the morning, late at night, while I’m eating, while I’m doing dishes; literally any time my eyes are not preoccupied. To understand the veracity with which I read in the summers, I can tell you that in one month, I have read 25 novels, and not short ones.

One of my favourite series of the summer thus far was The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo.

The Grisha Trilogy includes Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising. For your information, I bought the paperback boxset off Amazon CA for pretty cheap, you can find them here. I was inspired to read this trilogy because Netflix has now come out with a Netflix original TV series using this storyline plus other overlapping stories in the GrishaVerse. The trilogy centres around a girl named Alina Starkov. She was orphaned at a young age, and wound up at Keramzin, an orphanage where she met Mal, who becomes her long-time best friend. They join the military together, her as a cartographer, and him as a Tracker. During an expedition through The Fold, a dark and horrible curtain of death and despair dividing the people, Alina displays a very sought-after power, the ability to summon light. This ability is said to be able to banish The Fold and save the people of Ravka, and she is the first of her kind, rumored to be a Saint. She embarks on a journey to the Little Palace, where she is trained to use her power in order to save the Ravkans, but she must leave Mal, the only sure thing in her life, behind. The books detail her journey attempting to defeat The Fold, and the evildoers plotting to use her for their gain. Out of fear of giving away spoilers, I have really condensed my summary, but you can read a more detailed synopsis here.

Let’s talk about themes…

Any good story is universal, structured, simple, and has a character you want to root for. This trilogy has all of these qualities. Universality is always more subtle in fantasy novels given the subject matter, but some themes still ring true. In particular, this series tackles themes including abuse of power, the impact of division in society, the value of confidence and self-actualization, and they even tackle the idea of blind faith in religion. Most importantly, they explore the negative impact of greed the greedy person, and on society. Click here to read an interesting article about Greed Syndrome and how to recognize it. These are themes that we can read and relate to as they ring true for us too, even if we can’t manipulate matter like the Grisha can. The series itself is structured, and simple, and it is easy to read. The narration is third person omniscient, which makes the story easy for us to follow as we have insights into many of the characters’ points of view. Lastly, Leigh Bardugo masterfully wrote her characters in such a way that you almost want to root for all of them, even the ones you know to be villains. Every character has a quality about them that makes you want to hug and protect them from the tragic world they are living in, and you want to keep reading to make sure that whatever happens, they are safe.

Overall, The Grisha Trilogy is a skillfully written story, with evidence of all 4 elements of good storytelling: universality, structure, simplicity, and a character you can root for (or in this case, characters). As an added bonus, once you’ve read the books, you can watch the new hit series on Netflix.