Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Alina Starkov doesn't expect much from life. Orphaned by the Border Wars, she is sure of only one thing: her best friend, Mal--and her inconvenient crush on him. Until the day their army regiment enters the Fold, a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. When their convoy is attacked and Mal is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power not even she knew existed.

Ripped from everything she knows, Alina is taken to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling. With Alina's extraordinary power in his arsenal, he believes they can finally destory the Fold. Now Alina must find a way to master her untamed gift and somehow fit into her new life without Mal by her side. But nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. As the threat to the kingdom mounts and her dangerous attraction to the Darkling grows, Alina will uncover a secret that could tear her heart--and her country--in two. @goodreads 

 

There was only one part in the book I didn't care for and took a star off so there you go.

The rest of the book was pretty good. I enjoyed the characters and the different story lines. It seemed like it ended too soon or maybe I have been reading too many BIG books lately.

Alina and Mal had been orphans together for years until it was time for them to do their own thing. But, there is a secret about Alina and she goes from ordinary to extra-ordinary in the blink of an eye. < -- blink of an eye in more ways than one, and no, I didn't have that planned. And you will only understand what I'm talking about if you have read the book and know what Alina is.

Mal is one of the best trackers around and Alina ends up saving him and that's how they find out what she is and wow, just wow. Then she gets carted off.

Anyway, Mal and Alina get separated because she's beyond special now and goes to live with the other special people with the king. The king is an idiot by the way.

The Darkling was pretty hot and wanting to keep Alina all to himself and I loved him until he made me mad so there goes that. I loved Genya. I hated how she was treated at the castle by the others but she was my favorite character after the Darkling. Genya and Alina together were so funny and had such a good time.

Alina has to undergo training and I loved old Baghra that she trained with using her special magic. Of course, it took a little bit for Alina to get her magic to work on it's own but she figured some things out and it was all go. It was one of those revelations moments.

THEN

we find out some people are up to no good, or are they? I mean I don't know, sometimes things get twisted around and you find out something else in another book. Anyway, in this book some people are up to no good and Alina has to flee and ends up with Mal and then they get caught and some stuff goes down and then they are fleeing again.

It's all pretty vague right? Well, read the book. You know you probably have it sitting around forever like I did, so get it out.

Like I said I enjoyed it enough accept for one part and I'm hoping to love the next two books! 

GOODREADS REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1848339965