Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Before I start, I read this book a while ago, almost a year. I’m doing this review because I found a notebook where I was writing book reviews and decided to go more in depth on here. Because it’s been a year small details may be left out, solely because I forgot.

Okay.

You know those YA novels where there’s a regular girl who doesn’t really amount to anything but out of nowhere does and gains popularity and attention and soon realizes how special she is? This is exactly that.

Like the beginning said, a nation called Ravka has been torn in two. There is a girl named Alina. She is part of a regiment that is crossing the Shadow Fold. Alina doesn’t do much, mostly draws, but she does have a best friend who she’s been in life with forever.

I think you can see where THAT is going…

Malyen, her best friend/unrequited lover is attacked while they are crossing the Fold and a secret, dormant power awakens within her to save him. After this she’s questioned and soon realizes there’s more to her than she ever thought possible.

Then there’s the Darkling, a 100+ year old heretic who can amplify Grisha’s powers, therefore allowing Alina to use hers.

What’s a Grisha? Well they’re basically manipulators. Some are healers, some control other elements, Alina is one of them who has some sort of sun power.

So Alina is whisked away to a city where she learns more about herself and her powers while also growing closer to the Darkling. Yeah what could have been a love triangle never turned into one so thank goodness for that.

When I first got this book it took more FOREVER to read it. I couldn’t get past the second chapter. Nothing about it caught my attention and a lot of words are in Russian, which I don’t know, so I had to look up words constantly. When things started to pick up I couldn’t put the book down.

However…there were times I could practically tell you what was going to happen next. Alina is far from perfect but she’s so damn special it makes up for that. The “girl who’s secretly in love with her best friend who’s secretly in love with her” can get a bit old. Let me guess, he fools around with other girls because he’s just not ready for her.

I don’t know what it was about the book that made me keep reading. The world is different and I like the concept of Grisha, but there’s so many different names they go by and subgroups of them that I just couldn’t remember them all. Again, words I don’t know how to pronounce don’t help that.

Looking back it wasn’t THAT original, but something about it caught my attention and at the time I wanted to read the next book. I haven’t…but maybe one day I’ll decide to. Right now, I’m just trying to remember what actually happened.