So..

I read this after I read Six of Crows, just to get a broader view of the world. And now.. I have, but I didn’t enjoy Shadow and Bone as much as I thought I would, mainly because the spinoff was much much better than the original.

The story, though, is fine. The Shadow Fold was just creepy enough to be interesting. Alina, the MC, was strong. At the beginning, at least.

And that brings me to the sudden shift in my opinion of Alina.

As I said, Alina was cool at the start. She was funny, and determined, and interesting. But at about the middle of the book, she just.. became annoying. And bland. She lost that unique spark that she had, and I just couldn’t distinguish her from among the many heroines in all the other YA novels.

The pacing. It was fine. It was gripping. I much preffered the first half of the story, though.

So, although S&B was a bit underwhelming, I liked it. I still prefer SoC better, and you don’t have to read this book to get into SoC.