We’re doing the book this time around. After watching and enjoying season 1 of the Netflix show so much, I picked up the initial trilogy of Leigh Bardugo’s book series. I’ll be honest: I largely began the Sun Summoner trilogy with the thought, “Okay, get through these three, and then you’ll get the Crows!” Happily, though, Shadow and Bone is more than just a book to get “out of the way.” I really liked it and am looking forward to the next two in the series.
The country of Ravka is split in two, in more ways than one. Society is divided between ordinary humans and Grisha, an elite class of people who possess different varieties of innate magical abilities. What’s more, the land itself is divided down the middle by the Fold, a shadowy miasma populated by deadly monsters, which was created hundreds of years ago by an especially rare type of Grisha called a Shadow Summoner. Alina Starkhov, war orphan and military mapmaker, wasn’t revealed to have Grisha powers when tested as a child, but an instinctual release of magic against an attack during a perilous journey through the Fold reveals that she may be the Grisha the country has long been waiting for: the Sun Summoner, the only one with the the power to destroy the Fold and reunite Ravka.
Given the big changes in the series – making Alina mixed and addressing anti-Shu sentiment head-on, adding in characters who don’t appear until later books – I’m fairly impressed with how faithful the adaptation of the TV show apparently is. In my view, the changes that were made enhance the storytelling, but the nuts and bolts of the plot are all here. The sudden awakening of Alina’s power, her reluctance to take the mantle of Ravka’s prophesied savior and fear that she can’t be what they need her to be, and her gradual journey to becoming a hero. I will say that all the amplifier stuff is laid out better for me in the book. I feel like, if I’d gone in blind, I’d have better understood the quest for Morozova’s stag/etc., whereas in the show, I was pretty far into the season before I really got it all straight.
As in the series, I like the details of the world-building and how the influences for Ravka lean more toward tsarist Russia than, say, medieval England. The class system feels very Russian, as does the vernacular (I don’t know enough to know if the lingo they use is actual Russian or just “Ravkan” words that are meant to invoke Russian,) and while we don’t get the visuals on things like the keftas, the descriptions of the food and architecture all lean that way.
I appreciate that we’re just kind of thrown into the world: the Fold, the Grisha, the war, all of it are things that are presented to us as if we know what they are, and the details are rolled out gradually. The Grisha themselves are in an interesting position, inherently more powerful than non-Grisha and living in a place of privilege in the Little Palace, and yet, Ravka is the only country in the region that treats their Grisha well. All the others treat them barbarously, whether by executing them as witches or dissecting them to look for the source of their power. As such, there’s kind of a superiority-inferiority complex going on, with Grisha looking down on/not wanting to associate with non-powered folks but also keeping to themselves in part for their own sense of safety. Then within that, you have a pecking order between the different varieties of Grisha. I also like the deeper explanation of how the powers work, the theory behind the “Small Science.”
As a heroine, Alina remains a little generic. Orphan from nowhere plucked out of obscurity when she’s revealed to be the Super Special One who can save them all? Check. Uncomfortable with her grand destiny, both because she’s not sure she can pull it off and because she just wants to be like everybody else? Double check. I think Book Alina is snarkier than Show Alina, which is fun, but Show Alina seems more proactive to me. But the Darkling is really well done (I didn’t realize going in that his name is never used in the book, it’s just “the Darkling) – you can see why Alina is drawn to him even as he gives you reasons to be wary of him. I really like Genya too, and I like getting more dimension on David and some of the other Grisha.
Warnings
Strong violence (including allusions to rape,) drinking, sexual references, and strong thematic elements.
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