I LOVE fantasy novels. I love them so much that two shelves on my bookshelf are dedicated to fantasy books I already have, and will have. The thing I really love about fantasy is that it can ignore the pretty depressing and upsetting things that are happening in our world. I think that, yes, sometimes it talks about these things, but for the most part, fantasy is made for escapism. When you say “fantasy” you might think of that 7 book series that everyone has heard of and has maybe even read a few of. Yes, that’s Harry Potter. I read all of the books in 6th grade and then went on to being obsessed with the whole series for about three years. Until I heard that J.K. Rowling is transphobic.
First off, I’m not going to use the term, “The New Harry Potter” because to me, it’s better. I also think that we need to slowly cut out Harry Potter from our lives. Yes, I said that. I heard that the Shadow and Bone Trilogy (along with Six Of Crows characters being introduced) was going to be adapted to a TV show, as a Netflix Original. I had heard of the Shadow and Bone Trilogy before. I have struggles with fantasy sometimes because it can be dark. I didn’t know if these would be really dark or not. So I waited until the trailer for the show came out. When it came out, I showed it to my brothers. “That looks good!” they told me. I thought so, too. So, I looked at my library. 252 holds on 53 copies. If it takes someone to read the book as fast as I could, it would still take about a few months to a year before I would be able to read it. So I did what I wanted to avoid. I took the $40 I had in my wallet that I was saving for books, anyway, and I asked my mom to take me to my local small bookstore (shoutout to The Writers Block in Las Vegas, Nevada!).
I was lucky! They had a LOT of copies of Shadow and Bone, but they only had a few copies of Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising. I took them off the shelves so that no one else could snag them while I was making sure that this was really what I wanted to buy. Edit note: it was DEFINITELY something I wanted to buy. I paid only $33 for all three. That’s cheaper than ordering on Amazon. I don’t want to plug myself, or anything…. But hey! If you haven’t read my blog about making sure you fund bookstores and not Amazon, it’s on Ice Lolly Review’s site!
I would like to say that I always buy more books than I need. Isn’t this the trouble of the bookworm? There are about 4 or 5 books on my bookshelf that have not been read. Oh, that’s not counting the library books I've checked out for well over a month.
It took me about four days to read Shadow and Bone. I can’t rate it anything below 5 stars because it was definitely a 5 star read. I loved every moment of it. I think that it was fantastic and the world building wasn’t overwhelming like other fantasy novels can be. If you have struggles reading fantasy, this book will definitely make you obsessed with reading fantasy and with the Grishverse books.
I highly recommend reading (at least) Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising before you watch the Netflix show “Shadow and Bone”. If you want, you can read Six Of Crows and Crooked Kingdom as well (I haven’t read Crooked Kingdom yet, but Six Of Crows was really good!).
I recently started watching (and finished) watching Shadow and Bone. They did a really good job adapting the book into a series. I think that they messed up on a few things, as shows do, but other then that, I think that the show is a great addition to the books. And as always, the books were better.
Here’s where you can buy the books (I didn’t put Amazon):
https://www.thewritersblock.org/?searchtype=keyword&qs=shadow+and+bone&qs_file=&q=h.t viewer&using_sb=status&qsb=keyword (my favorite, Las Vegas locals!)
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/shadow%20and%20bone/_/N-0 (Can be shipped!) https://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/ (Can be shipped, USA only)
https://www.indiebound.org/indie-store-finder (this is good for finding a store to buy from. You can put in your location and find the closest bookstore).
Since I live in the USA, I don’t know what bookstores are out of the country. I’m trying to learn to be better, but I am flawed. If you have a bookstore near you, I imagine they will have this book.
Here is Barnes and Noble’s international shipping update:
https://help.barnesandnoble.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4351/~/international-shipping
Here are some fun things to look at/do once you’ve become obsessed with the Grishaverse:
https://www.netflixshadowandbone.com/
https://winteriscoming.net/2021/06/12/does-netflix-shadow-and-bone-romanticize-the-darkling/ https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/theres-so-much-more-shadow-andamp-bone-on-th e-way/ar-AAKOxYF
And finally, here is the trailer for the first season of Shadow and Bone (they just announced season 2!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1WHQTbJ7vE
Bibliography (links mentioned):
https://www.thewritersblock.org/?searchtype=keyword&qs=shadow+and+bone&qs_file=&q=h.t viewer&using_sb=status&qsb=keyword
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/shadow%20and%20bone/_/N-0
https://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/
https://www.indiebound.org/indie-store-finder
https://help.barnesandnoble.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4351/~/international-shipping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1WHQTbJ7vE
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/theres-so-much-more-shadow-andamp-bone-on-th e-way/ar-AAKOxYF
https://www.netflixshadowandbone.com/
https://winteriscoming.net/2021/06/12/does-netflix-shadow-and-bone-romanticize-the-darkling/
SaraJane Devereaux (Pronounced: Dev-Er-Row) is from Las Vegas, Nevada. SaraJane has a passion for reading and tends to read almost anything she can get her hands on. She has been making up stories for a long time, between telling stories with a pencil and paper or acting it out in front of her family, she's a storyteller at heart. Right now, SaraJane is focused on writing what her heart wants, but she wants to be a screenwriter as her career. She has been published on Blue Things Zine, Feed Us With Words, and SAST, just to name a few. She hopes that the world realizes that it's okay to still be obsessed with Hamilton in 2021.