The Darkling & I
It has been a while since my last book review, but here we go! I finally read Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo and it did not disappoint.
Shadow & Bone was initiating.
Siege & Storm was sewing my soul into the characters.
Ruin & Rising was violently ripping at those stitches.
As I continue to read more and more series, I have come to the realization that the first book in a series is always going to feel rough, like a baby deer learning to walk. Establishing a world and its nuances is always going to be clunky and somewhat uninteresting due to the learning curve. This says nothing about the quality of the story. The quality of a story lies in its ability to keep the reader’s belief suspended. Shadow & Bone is such a beginning.
Then book two happens. Siege & Storm. Suddenly, I know the map as well as the characters and understand their languages, their peoples, and their practices. Book one had done such a good job of teaching me about this world that it became second-nature while reading the rest of the series. And we get a pirate—I mean privateer? Um, yes, please. The stakes are raised exponentially as the battle against the Darkling becomes a battle to keep one’s own motivations in check. Is she fighting to save Ravka, or is she fighting to gain power?
The finale, Ruin & Rising, ends how you expect in a very unexpected way. Bardugo knows how to write smooth-talkers. Mal and Nikolai have the most heart-pulling lines in the series, and every single time they speak, I don’t want them to stop. While each of their journeys are tragic, it makes for some real good reading. Remember, readers are masochists and crave the pain of our favorite characters suffering emotional damage that we ourselves would never be able to handle in real life.
The religious allegories, theme of identity, and ode to unity are astounding even when they aren’t always subtle. I was not being told that religion is fickle but powerful; I was shown how belief can move people. I was not told that who we are is more than where we came from; I was shown that we control our destiny. I was not told that there is strength in numbers; I was shown what a group of people united by the same goals are capable of.
What’s more was the approach to mercy. In books, as it is in life, taking a life is no simple act. The varied versions of life being taken and the main character’s role in it display a full-circle journey that only resonates to its full effect at the final act of mercy in the series. It is beautiful and just so right. There is a clarity achieved here, the release of breath, an end to the anxiety about things that are uncertain.
My only grievance is that Netflix didn’t renew the series to be produced to its end.
Thank you, Leigh Bardugo and Square Fish (and everyone else who made the series possible). I’m going to go summon the sun now.
