Shadow and Bone

Shadow and Bone is a book about an ordinary eighteen year old orphan girl, Alina Starkov who has grown up with her best friend and crush Mal. They're sent into the army and soon they have to cross the Fold, which is everyones worst nightmare come to life. The fold is a desert crawling with vicious monsters, when they're attacked Alina finds a power within her that surprises everyone and soon enough she's training to become a Grisha, a very respected person in the royal court who has magical abilities. Now Alina has the chance to become everything she's never let herself dream of being, beautiful, strong, and most of all, wanted. But is it worth losing Mal? One of the reasons that I loved this book so much is that it put a really complicated and incredibly twisted, dark fantasy story around one of the most commonly thought of and used ideas. The idea that beauty isn't found on the outside, but the inside, and that its what's on the inside that counts. I thought Leigh Bardugo, the author did a great job on keeping her main character realistic. I loved how the main character, Alina was very far from perfect and that made her a lot easier to relate to which is, I think, one of the most important traits of a book. Alina was very skinny, weak, and sickly in the beginning of the book, and it was something that was constantly brought up throughout the book. I liked that the author had her turn strong and then beautiful because of her strength rather than vise versa. Another thing I really loved was how in most books the heroine or hero, has been special in some way from the very first page of the book. For example Tris from the book Divergent was divergent, Katniss from The Hunger Games was incredible at hunting, Katsa from Graceling had a grace. But Alina on the other hand was plain as could be, there was nothing to her. Very much like Bella from Twilight although she remained boring throughout the whole book. In conclusion I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to everyone because it was like reading an adult fairy tale. It used one of the most known morals, beauty is found on the inside and turned it into this incredible plot.