Thoughts of a Bibliophile: August 2018

Title: Shadow and Bone

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Release: 2012

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: ★★★☆☆

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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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How has it taken me so long to read this trilogy? Six of Crows was one of the first fantasy books I read and is still one of my absolute favourites. I loved its characters and fun plot, but I did always feel as though I was missing a lot of the backstory from having missed reading the Grisha Verse. And I am so happy to be finally getting more into this world.

It has one of the most unique magic systems in any of the books I've read. Yes, there is a lot of elemental magic which is pretty typical, but the way it works is so interesting. There are three main groups, which are then specialised further. The Corporalki is the order of the living dead. They are split into two, Healers and Heartenders. The former is pretty obvious and the latter can slow your heart down and kill you. They literally have death stare. Then there are the Etherealki, the order of Summoners. They are split into three, the Squallers who control air pressure, Inferni who control fire, and Tidemakers who control water. Finally, there are the Materialki, the order of Fabirkators, who are split into Durasts that can manipulate metal, stone and pretty much any other solid material. There are also the Alkemi who dabble in poisons and explosions. Pretty cool right?

I loved following Alina as she is thrown into this world of magic and her attempts to try and fit in. To be honest, she's a bit all over the place and doesn't really know what she's doing or who she really is. But for me, I thought this made her much more believable as a character and I liked her more for it. Who really has their life all sorted out at 17?

I do want more from the villain. I feel like this book only brushed the surface and I want to know more about them and their motive. At the moment it's a bit clique with the whole hungry for power and destruction vibe but I hope I will find out more in the next two books. I won't say who it is as big spoilers there but I'm not sure yet. I also feel like he needs to do more evil. We didn't see a whole lot of evil actions from this character until the end and I want some more please!

Finally, the love interests. This is one of the things our main character is confused about and I have to say I did like one over the other. But that could never work and I'm not too keen on where it left off. Which I think makes me a bit evil as it is quite nice but I'm just not feeling it. I also don't feel like it really can work in their situation which makes it slightly less believable. I feel like that very abstract but I am really trying not to spoil anything! If you've read it, I hope you know what I mean and comment if you agree or completely disagree and are currently cursing your screen. Sorry!

And there we go! What did you think of the first book of the Grisha Verse or are you like me and so far behind you're only just getting to it/ haven't picked it up yet?

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Title: A Reaper at the Gates

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Release: 2018

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: ★★★★☆

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Beyond the Empire and within it, the threat of war looms ever larger.

The Blood Shrike, Helene Aquilla, is assailed on all sides. Emperor Marcus, haunted by his past, grows increasingly unstable, while the Commandant capitalizes on his madness to bolster her own power. As Helene searches for a way to hold back the approaching darkness, her sister's life and the lives of all those in the Empire hang in the balance.

Far to the east, Laia of Serra knows the fate of the world lies not in the machinations of the Martial court, but in stopping the Nightbringer. But while hunting for a way to bring him down, Laia faces unexpected threats from those she hoped would aid her, and is drawn into a battle she never thought she'd have to fight.

And in the land between the living and the dead, Elias Veturius has given up his freedom to serve as Soul Catcher. But in doing so, he has vowed himself to an ancient power that will stop at nothing to ensure Elias's devotion--even at the cost of his humanity

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I've decided not to do a proper review of A Reaper at the Gate, mainly because it is the third instalment of the Ember in the ashes quartet so I feel like a review would be pointless. It is still a review of a kind, but more discussiony, maybe a bit more spoilerish but if you haven't read it I don't think it will ruin anything.

The first point I want to talk about is how faced paced it was! I a lot happens in quite a short time to a lot of characters. I think this stemmed from having three points of views so each storyline didn't have enough time to go into lots of detail, and sometimes it was just too rushed. I'm the kind of reader that likes some description to ground the scene, and I like a lot of time to read about my favourite characters. At some points, somthing quite significant or interesting would happen in one paragraph, and already it was moving on. I don't see how the POV could have been done any other way as there needed to be three points of views to tell all that was going on logistically, (although I did find myself wanted to race through Elias and the Blood Shrikes chapters to get to Laia's) but I would have been quite happy if the book had been bigger. After all, who wouldn't want to spend more time reading this series?

I also really hope to see more of Musa, the character who acts like Laia's (kind of) fairy godmother, in the last book. I felt he left way too early. He brought a lighter feel to the book with a lot (A LOT) of death and hurt and destruction. And whilst he definitely does not have a light past, he represents the hope for the future that Laia had almost forgotten about in her determination to destroy the Nightbringer.

Speaking of the Nightbringer, I loved reading about his history. It seems so relevant and I can completely imagine some human going in and ruining something that didn't need to be interfered with and therefore dooming the rest of their kind when the king they destroyed comes back to utterly destroy them in return. But are we to feel sympathy towards the Nightbringer? Whilst I don't think I do because he's still done very evil things, I can understand why he is now so hateful. And he is definitely getting his revenge. I would love to know more about that world before. It's moments when reading bits like this when I wonder whether or not Sabaa Tahir already had this background planned out even from the first book. It seems so far from the Blackcliff setting of An Ember in the Ashes but looking back, it all links and makes complete sense. Authors are magic I swear.

I did find myself wanting to throw the book in frustration a few time, but then not being able to as I had to keep reading to find out what happened next. If you haven't read this yet then prepare yourself for the number of devastating things Laia, Elias and Helene have to go through. If you have read this, are you hanging in there? Or trying not to go and cry in a corner like I am... I had a lot of moments when I wanted to ask Sabaa Tahir how she could be so cruel and wondered if there could be another way but nope. The characters were to be destroyed one way or another. Hopefully the next book everything resolves itself with lots of sunshine and rainbows with a nice pink bow on top, leaving everyone happy and perfect. Yeah, probably not but a girl can hope!

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