Grisha Series Review

[Prof. Rilla White]

So, I'm a bit bad at keeping up with posting about my Summer Reading Challenge. This is mostly due to the fact I've been busy devouring books. In the last week I finished Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising all part of a series written by Leigh Bardugo. I'm going to review the whole series at once so as not to flood the forum. Hopefully that is okay.

In this series the main character is Alina who is a very powerful Sun Summoner (and also the only Sun Summoner in known memory). She is followed throughout each book as she tries to unravel her loyalties, love life, and save the world from a horrible Darkling. Alina is much different than your typical heroine as she is small, homely looking, and just in general not great at the whole saving the world thing. She's very naive about life as she was raised in an orphanage before going into mandatory military service.

Shadow and Bone follows Alina as she discovers her unique gift and starts exploring it. Siege and Storm follows her as she escapes capture and tries to make sense of the changing world around her. Ruin and Rising is the concluding book if the trilogy and as such has the fastest pace and the most casualties/deaths.

This whole series pulled me in to the point where I read them all back to back. I literally downloaded the next ebook as soon as I finished reading the one before it. If you enjoy fantasy and magic in books I think you'd like this series. The second two books do get a bit dark so if violence, death, or romance bother you then you might not be interested in reading them. They aren't really feel good books and I'll admit I cried quite a bit reading them but they were also great reads.