Shadow and Bone Shines

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

New York : Square Fish, 2013.

358 p. : map ; 22 cm. 

If you've seen any of my other posts, you'll know I'm not a huge fan of fantasy/high fantasy novels.  It's not that I dislike them; it's just that they don't completely thrill me.  That being said, I really did enjoy reading this first novel of the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the opening book of the larger Grishaverse series of books by Leigh Bardugo. 

The writing is strong in Shadow and Bone; Bardugo is really good at creating atmospheric settings and has a good ear for dialog. She's able to create her imagined world with subtlety and suggestion.  Also the plotting and action builds and accelerates as the novel goes on, so that by the end I found myself racing along to see what would happen and did not want to put the book down.

The novel has been extremely popular (becoming a Netflix series in March of 2021) - receiving favorable reviews, and becoming a NYT's bestseller.

This is a fantasy novel I'd be glad to recommend and we have many more of her novels in the collection so that a fan of Bardugo would have a lot more to read.

Metal, Wishes, Romance, and Lots of Blood

Of Metal and Wishes by Sarah Fine
New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2015
321 p. ; 21 cm.

I'd give this book a solid B+.  I found it interesting and very readable but not quite as good as I had hoped.  There is a lot to like about Fine's book.  It's setting in a harsh factory-industrial compound rife with brutal working conditions and ethnic tensions are very relevant to current issues around worker exploitation and racial tensions.  The conservative and sexist mores of the world Sarah Fine creates in Metal and Wishes highlights the dangers that girls and women face in the world.

However, like the Kirkus Review writer, I found that the telling of the story was a bit uneven.  The romance between the protagonist Wen and the minority worker Melik is rooted mainly in physical attraction - both characters are clearly striking looking people.  Also the as one review pointed out, the world outside the factory setting is left mostly undeveloped.  Finally some of the gruesome action (people getting shredded by little mechanical security devices) seemed a bit gratuitous.

But given those shortcomings, Fine's dystopian novel is still a pretty engaging read and one that I think some students would enjoy.  With its romance and exoticism and its plot of rebellion and violence it is likely to appeal to both young women and men.