strange and random happenstance

The Lives of Saints by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Imprint
Publication Date: October 6th, 2020
Format: Hardcover, 128 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

The Istorii Sankt'ya, The Lives of the Saints, is given to children in Ravka to learn about the saints. When Alina was given a copy by the Apparat she brushed it aside as something meant for children. Yet she soon comes to realize that this book full of short lives and brutal deaths might be the key to defeating the Darkling and that saints might be synonymous with Grisha. All the saints are enumerated here, even Alina herself. The tales told are miraculous. Some are self-sacrificing, some are misunderstandings, but each is illuminating. And each only has a small aspect of the truth. Because truth changes over time. Truth morphs and becomes something palatable. Something that can be understood versus the true magic of what was. So even if you think you know what happened, perhaps you don't know the whole truth. Sankta Lizabeta, she of the bees and the blood red roses, she who was killed for not protecting others, she might have a dark little secret that was later revealed...Sankt Juris slayed a dragon or did he? Did he and the dragon become something more? But perhaps the most surprising saint is the Starless Saint, for those who seek salvation in the dark. The Starless Saint is none other than the Darkling. Because while a villain to all logical thinking people to some he is a hero. He did just want to keep Ravka safe and make it a haven for Grisha. If he had to kill a fair amount of Grisha to accomplish his goal, his long life could perhaps excuse his lack of empathy. His lack of understanding that every single life matters not just the welfare of the greater good. But here he is, among the pages of a children's book, there to worship and build alters too, like all the rest. And who knows, in the end maybe some of them were just as misguided as the Darkling...

This companion book to Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse is obviously a bit of a cash grab. They had to produce the Istorii Sankt'ya for use on the Netflix show as it's so important to the plot and figured since they already had it made there had to be fans who would fork over good money for a copy. And they were right. Yet the whole commercial aspect of this book doesn't diminish the fact that it is a beautiful little volume that adds so much to your understanding of the universe Leigh Bardugo has created. We learn the stories of the saints who Inej named her knives after. We get to finally hold in our hand the painting of Ilya Morozova, Sankt Ilya in Chains, that fueled Alina's search for the third amplifier. And we get to see how Alina herself was immortalized in the pages of this book she clung to so feverishly. As she pointed out, all saints live brutal lives that end in death, but it's the ways in which Leigh changes her narrative for each saint that keeps the stories fresh. Sometimes we get a straightforward tale of what happened to them, and other times we get stories that are about the people who worshiped the saint and because of their devotion they were saved, hello Yuri! This second example is what Leigh does with Sankta Alina, therefore giving us a story that is new to our favorite heroine and saint. But this book is full of surprises. As Alina herself pointed out when she was researching Ilya Morozova, there are so many variations and iterations of tales out there that perhaps we've heard it before. And here there is one we have if you happened to have read The Language of Thorns. Sankta Ursula's tale is the tale of Ulla from "When Water Sang Fire" about the creation of the Broken Heart islands off the northern coast of Fjerda. This little callback was a wonderful parallel that shows how perfectly built Leigh's world is. Almost as perfectly built as the Ice Court...but that was a different saint altogether.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alina, Apparat, Bardugo Bash, Empathy, Grisha, Grishaverse, Istorii Sankt'ya, Leigh Bardugo, Morozova, Netflix, Ravka, Saints, The Darkling, The Language of Thorns, The Lives of the Saints, The Starless Saint, Ursula

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: June 17th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (Different edition then one reviewed)

The Apparat's plan to win the war is to bide his time underground in his white cathedral with his disciples and rise victorious when all Alina's enemies have killed each other. While this kind of strategy has led to his long and successful career in the halls of Os Alta, Alina is going crazy underground as his saintly prisoner. Her illness after the battle with the Darkling has left her sick and frail, but being so far away from the light she summons means she is unable to fully heal, unable to escape the Apparat and her growing fear that he might realize a dead saint is less work than a living one. Luckily for Alina her fellow Grisha are concocting a plan to release her from this underground tomb and resume their hunt for the final amplifier in the hopes that then Alina will have the strength to defeat the Darkling. Escaping though is the first and easiest step, and in truth, it wasn't easy at all. But working their way out of a labyrinth of underground caverns is quite easier than locating a rebel prince who has become a sky pirate employing guerrilla tactics or hunting down a mystical creature that may not even exist. All this just in the hopes that they might succeed. Yet with the Darkling striking out faster, sooner, and unexpectedly at every turn, Alina wonders how her small misfit band of Grisha can survive and how they even became compatriots in the first place. With despair driving them more than hope, Alina wants to be the light in the darkness but fears that her lust for power might make her more similar to the Darkling than she dares admit to anyone, even Mal. And what if victory is only possible by letting go of the only thing that matters to her?

A satisfying conclusion is the hardest thing to achieve. A delicate balance of all the possible outcomes while remaining true to the characters and giving the readers closure. Some might say it's impossible, others improbable, but Leigh Bardugo comes very close to a perfect ending with a relentless pace maintained until the final pages of Ruin and Rising. I will just miss the Darkling horribly though. Perhaps I should stop falling for the baddies and the rogues so that when they are vanquished or cast aside I won't be left here pining and brokenhearted. Yet my inability to stop falling for the bad guys was a foregone conclusion with the Darkling. What made Ruin and Rising so amazing and so fully rounded a book was the insight Bardugo gave us about him. Here we don't have just a mindless baddie whose sole goal is power and destruction. We don't have a cookie cutter villain with a goofy gimmick, like a bullseye iris (don't ask me why I'm thinking of Charles Dance in Last Action Hero, I honestly don't know.) Bardugo gets that bad guys can't be all that bad, there has to be more. Here we have a multifaceted villain. He's not black like Spinal Tap none more black, he's black like an oil slick or the night sky, there's rainbows and depth, there's hints of blue that make the black blacker, but a splash of light every now and then. His back story is gut wrenching, especially if you read this edition with the prequel story "The Demon in the Wood." To the rest of the world he's this improbable being of such destructive force that he is terrifying, but to Alina, he's just a boy, like calling to like. What wouldn't we do if we spent lifetimes alone and persecuted? Your only wish to be loved and safe and have someone tenderly say your name. Your true name. To learn at the end that you are in fact truly alone, that would destroy anyone.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alina, Bardugo Bash, Charles Dance, Conclusion, Grisha, Last Action Hero, Leigh Bardugo, Mal, Prequel, Ruin and Rising, Saints, Short Story, Spinal Tap, The Apparat, The Darkling, The Demon in the Wood, Trilogy

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: June 4th, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (Different edition then one reviewed)

Alina and Mal barely escaped the Darkling in the fold of darkness and death that divides Ravka. Alina wrested back control of her power from the Darkling, but not before a deadly price was paid. So many lives lost on that sand skiff. Hiding out halfway around the world Alina is haunted by what happened and the choices she has made. Sickening, she longs to use her powers and the ill gotten amplifier but it is too risky. She has turned her back on Ravka, hoping for a new life with Mal and that the rumors of the Darkling's continued existence are a lie. But they cannot hide forever. The Darkling finds them across the True Sea. He has plans for Alina and disturbing new powers of his own. He isn't just manipulating the world around him, he is creating something new, he is using the darkest of magics. He is dabbling in the forbidden. Instead of taking his captives back to Ravka the Darkling takes them far north on the hunt for another creature out of fairy tale and myth. A second forbidden amplifier for Alina's powers. Though little does the Darkling know that there are other people who also have plans for Alina. Plans that she can't ignore. Impossible you might say, but really you probably mean improbable. Alina can no longer turn her back on her country's suffering as the Grisha are ostracized and Ravka is divided. She agrees to return and lead the second army in the place of the Darkling with the sole purpose of his downfall. Yet are her new powers and believed divinity a match for the Darkling? Or does she need more power in order to succeed? The fact remains that the Darkling is the only one who understands what she is going through and therefore the only one she can turn to. A fact born out the more removed she feels from the other Grisha and in particular from Mal. But those are things that can wait, the battle with the Darkling is coming. Can she survive it in tact or will the power coursing through her corrupt her like it did the Darkling?

In the battle of good versus evil there always comes a time when the wiser action is to run. To regroup and come back hopefully stronger than before. While necessary, this can sometimes lead to boring storytelling. The suffering, the privations, the hardships, the hope of news that perhaps the luck of the enemy is running out. These stories are never my favorite. After the epic showdown in the fold between Alina and the Darkling Bardugo went in an unexpected direction. The Darkling forces Alina and Mal out of hiding almost immediately. Alina and Mal could go on the offensive while preparing a strong defense without us waiting until the next volume. A defense that might involve fairy tales. Bardugo has tapped into the vein of Russian folktales and brought out what modernization and progress mean to our shared past. In Siege and Storm the words of the Darkling that the time of the Grisha is coming to a close is not only explored but expanded on. There is this interesting dynamic of past versus future, with the old ways dying off. The future doesn't belong to Tsars and magic and fairy tales, but to iron and steel and guns. Yes, we see glimpses that perhaps, just maybe, there could be a world where they could coexist, feeding each other, but that seems like the true fairy tale. Yet what strikes me most is that while Ravka might possibly be saved by these modern military advancements, their only true hope lies with Alina. Alina isn't a creature of the modern world, she is of the old world. She is of the time when maps still bore legends that said beyond here there be monsters. She thinks in fairy stories of the too-clever fox. The third amplifier she seeks is that of the fire bird, a creature of myth that isn't just in one or two stories, but in every story of Ravka. A fairy tale holds the key to the future, and that is a world that I want to live in. A world where stories are real.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alina, Amplifier, Bardugo Bash, Deification, Fairy Tales, Fire Bird, Folktales, Grisha, Leigh Bardugo, Mal, Modernization, Myths, Ravka, Russia, Russian, Second Army, Siege and Storm, Sun Summoner, The Darkling, Tsars

THIS is THE SHOW I've been waiting all year for. Heck, YEARS for, so yes, I might be a tad more critical because I just re-read all the books in the Grishaverse and therefore little things were getting to me amongst the greatness of this epic, like I do not believe there is any way Zoya would have bangs. Yes, she's a Squaller so she could probably maintain them, perfectly balancing humidity and placement, I just don't think they're Zoya... And yes, I admit I've probably thought about this more than was necessary, but that's just me. The grandeur and the beauty and the bangs are all here on display. This is the epic fantasy we've been needing to purge Game of Thrones out of our system, so STOP comparing it to Game of Thrones! Unless you've read all the books then I'll let you call Zoya Daenerys Targaryen 2.0. But that is all. There is so much they go right in this adaptation. I was so wary of Kaz, Jesper, Inej, Nina, and Matthias being brought forward in time I was shocked how well they fit in, merging the original trilogy and the first duology. This led to some wonderful "what if" scenarios like the Darkling and Kaz meeting in an alley. Kaz's exit was priceless. In fact while I feel the casting was so perfect throughout, hats off to Kit Young, he IS Jesper. I don't know if I've ever seen a book to screen adaptation get something so right. He just doesn't play the character well, he is Jesper! And as for the addition of Milo? Dear saints, I didn't know how much this series needed a goat until it happened! The only real issues I took had to do with budgetary concerns. They used beautiful Eastern European locations in Budapest, but Leigh so lovingly describes the Little Palace in detail I wish they had had the funds to actually build it, or at least the dining hall. Also sometimes the CGI was a little off, especially when Mal and Alina were hunting the stage, Mal himself looked like he was CGI right out of a video game and I was fighting some true uncanny valley issues. So in the end my analysis is, they got in pretty damn right, I just feel like I'm more in the world when I'm reading the books. Which now need a goat.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alina, And the Emmy Goes To, Bangs, Budget, CGI, Daenerys Targaryen, Game of Thrones, Goats, Grisha, Grishaverse, Jesper, Kaz, Leigh Bardugo, Mal, Milo, Shadow and Bone, The Darkling, Zoya

Ruin and Rising (The Grisha Book 3) by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: June 17th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (Different edition then one reviewed)

The Apparat's plan to win the war is to bide his time underground in his white cathedral with his disciples and rise victorious when all Alina's enemies have killed each other. While this kind of strategy has led to his long and successful career in the halls of Os Alta, Alina is going crazy underground as his prisoner. Her illness after the battle with the Darkling has left her sick and frail, but being so far away from the light she summons means she is unable to fully heal, unable to escape the Apparat and her growing fear that he might realize a dead saint is less work then a living saint. Luckily for Alina her fellow Grisha are concocting a plan to release her from this underground tomb and resume their hunt for the final amplifier in the hopes that then Alina will have the strength to defeat the Darkling.

Escaping though is the first and easiest step, and in truth, it wasn't easy at all. But working their way out of a labyrinth of underground caverns is quite easier then locating a rebel prince who has become a sky pirate employing guerrilla tactics or hunting down a mystical creature that may not even exist. All this just in the hopes that they might succeed. Yet with the Darkling striking out faster, sooner, and unexpectedly at every turn, Alina wonders how her misfit bad of Grisha can survive and how they even became compatriots in the first place. With despair driving them more then hope, Alina wants to be the light in the darkness but fears that her lust for power might make her more similar to the Darkling then she dares admit to anyone, even Mal.

A satisfying conclusion is the hardest thing to achieve. A delicate balance of all the possible outcomes while remaining true to the characters and giving the readers closure. Some might say it's impossible, others improbable, but Leigh Bardugo came very close to a perfect ending with non stop action and wit. Mal becoming even more Malcolm Reynolds as he paraphrases Nathan Fillion's character from the Firefly episode "The Message" to my delight. Though I do have issues with the improbability of the happily ever after, I still felt a satisfaction wash over me, with maybe a little eye rolling at the convenience of things. Yes, after a bleak tale almost everyone wants love to prevail, cue the happy welcome home to the Shire music and end credits, but there's me going, but can't it still be a little dark? Perhaps I should stop falling for the baddies and the rogues so that when they are vanquished or cast aside I won't be left there brokenhearted.

Yet my inability to stop falling for the bad guys was a foregone conclusion with the Darkling. What made Ruin and Rising so amazing and so fully rounded a book was the insight Bardugo gave us about him. Here we don't have just a mindless baddie whose sole goal is power and destruction. We don't have a cookie cutter villain with a goofy gimmick, like a bullseye iris (don't ask me why I'm thinking of Charles Dance in Last Action Hero, I honestly don't know). Bardugo gets that bad guys can't be all that bad, there has to be more. Here we have a multifaceted villain. He's not black like Spinal Tap none more black, he's black like an oil slick or the night sky, there's rainbows and depth, there's hints of blue that make the black blacker, but a splash of light every now and then. His back story is gut wrenching, especially if you read this edition with the prequel story "The Demon in the Wood." To the rest of the world he's this improbable being of such destructive force that he is terrifying, but to Alina, he's just a boy, like calling to like. What wouldn't we do if we spent lifetimes alone and persecuted? Your only wish to be loved and safe and have someone tenderly say your name. Your true name. To learn at the end that you are in fact truly alone, that would destroy anyone.

Aside from the whole wanting to go off with the Darkling, I also kind of really want to just move into the world of this book. Because I don't want this to be the end. I can't accept it for some reason and this has spurred me and my overactive brain on to start asking fifty million questions about the world Bardugo has built. I have so many thoughts on the worldbuilding that I can't sit still. I don't think it's a lack on Bardugo's part either as to insufficient information, but more my insatiable curiosity. Unless of course you have the same questions, then perhaps we all need to sit down with Leigh and work things out. The exception to this is the distances. I really don't think that Bardugo worked out her distances on her map very well. In the first book it took far longer to get anywhere, and as each book progressed it took less and less time to get from one place to another, yes, I know they had improved transport... but still, it's off. Make a key, stick to it, alright?

As for my other questions, I'd have to be like the Darkling and have a really long lifespan because, well, some things I want to know are past, some are present, and some are future, unless I had the ability to time travel, that would make this faster. Firstly I want to know if Morozova just created the applifiers or did he plan on using them. It seems like a lot of work to go around and make them and not use them. But if he used them, well, did they respawn on his death? But then they thought, maybe he didn't die, so then, well, it makes no sense. Though I really want to know more about the physics of the fold. So it's this big blackness dividing the country and it's the blackest black inside. Well, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, this is a north south divide. How is there dawn in West Ravka or a sunset in East Ravka? Just how? See, I just need more and more books in the world to work this all out once and for all. Leigh's got to get on this ASAP.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alina, Apparat, Charles Dance, Darkling, Firefly, Grisha, Grisha Trilogy, Last Action Hero, Leigh Bardugo, Mal, Nathan Fillion, Ravka, Ruin and Rising, Spinal Tap, The Fold

Shadow and Bone (The Grisha Book 1) by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: June 5th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Alina and Mal only have each other. Orphaned in the wars they grew up looking to each other for everything. Now they are in the first army together, Mal's a tracker and Alina's a cartographer. But little does Mal know Alina's true feelings for him. The way her heart thumps when he's near or how she worries that they might be parted. Their parting is near at hand. The land of Ravka is divided by a darkness, a nothing. The capital is cut off from the ports and the country has been vulnerable for hundreds of years while creatures roam the blackness killing those who try to cross. Mal and Alina are about to attempt the crossing with their units; only everything goes wrong. The evil creatures with their blind eyes attack and it looks as if they are both going to die, but then a light as bright as the sun shines out and cuts the creatures down. Little does Alina realize that the light emanated from her.

Being called before the leader of the second army, the Darkling, Alina thinks that for some reason she is in trouble, but doesn't know why she is brought before the Grisha. The Grisha are masters of the small science, innate abilities in them that classify them as Corporalki, Etheralki, or Materialki, with powers ranging from stopping a human heart to metallurgy. Summoning the Sun means that Alina is a Etheralki who somehow avoided detection. Finding out that she isn't in trouble but is in fact what their country has been praying for since the arrival of this dark rift puts pressure beyond measure on Alina. Not only is she trying to forget being separated from Mal, but dealing with the cosseted little world of backbiting Grishas, all while she's trying come to gripes with a power she never knew she had and hoping that it's all a big mistake or joke. Yet what if the Darkling has a different purpose in mind for Alina's powers the banishing the darkness? Will she be able to withstand his magnetism and the allure of life at court?

I remember reading a review about Shadow and Bone wherein they said it was dark, Russian, and left a vivid impression on me of a girl wandering a desolate landscape of evil shadows. Now that I've read the book I wonder if the reviewer had actually bothered to pick it up because this isn't some Russian Dorthy Gale lost in the wilderness, but the reviewer I guess could be said to have done their job because it did make me pick it up. And you know what? I wasn't disappointed that the only thing the reviewer really got right was the Russian and the darkness because it was a fun fast read. There's nothing overly original or revolutionary in this book, it is too obviously like other books then like itself to be called first rate literature. The plot set up is typical YA in structure, outcast has an ability they never knew they had and can save everyone... sounds familiar right? It's Tamora Pierce meets Buffy meets Harry Potter meets The Hunger Games meets The Neverending Story meets on and on and on. But somehow Bardugo makes it work more for her then against her. Even if Mal is too obviously Nathan Fillion in Firefly, name and all, it just works. Plus, I've a habit of wanting Nathan Fillion in all my books, so here I didn't even have to make an effort!

The real reason this book works more then it fails is that it was fun having a different setting then usual. YA literature tends to break down into a few distinct categories; post apocalyptic society, fairy tale re-tellings, or fantasy world. You rarely get to see re-imagings of past time periods but with fantastical elements, their are of course exceptions to this rule like Robin LaFevers' His Fair Assassin Series, but Russia, Russia is rarely tackled. Yet, with all things there are the parts that work and the parts that don't. I was enthralled with the court life and how Bardugo took a simple coat and was able to hint at the culture, but also was able to break down that culture with the use of colors and the distinctions in the threading. It was the little things, the details that she got just right. But she also got some big things quite wrong. Sometimes the place names or wordings, well, it was kind of overly kitschy or bang your head dumb. Kind of a when in doubt add a "ki" or a "nik" to the end of the word worldbuilding. No, I'm sorry, that doesn't make it Russian. Also Tsibeya for Siberia... not really feeling that. Funny spellings, no. The worst is Fjerda, which I'm taking to be Norway, because of the Fjords that the country is noted for. The problem I have with this is every time I see the word Fjerda or Fjerdian, the way it sounds in my head is like the Swedish Chef trying to talk, so it's the land of Børk Børk Børk.

But it's the subtler undertones of Mother Russia that coheres the book versus the more absurd elements (Børk). The mirroring of the political situation of Russia at the beginning of the last century was spot on. Strip out all the Grishas and the magic, take out an evil nothing and what have we got? We have a country with a widening gap between the haves and the have nots. The King is just a figurehead that no one respects and has a mysterious religious leader as counsel. The power of the country resides in the army and out of this a megalomaniac leader will take the country's reigns for his own will. So the Darkling is Stalin or Lenin, with the Apparat as Rasputin. I would not be the least bit surprised to see the Tsar and his family hurried into a cellar in the next book so that they can never be a threat to the Darkling ever again. Yet by seeing this through a filter of fiction and fantasy it somehow makes it more real then less real. When we travel with Alina from her life of drudgery in the army to her life of splendor in the Little Palace, we get to see in stark relief the widening gap between the haves and the have nots. Sometimes it takes another medium to filter events for us to get at the truth of something, and that is what Leigh Bardugo has done in Shadow and Bone. It might not be perfect, but it is memorable and echoes down the ages to our shared history.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alina, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Darkling, Firefly, Grisha Trilogy, Harry Potter, Leigh Bardugo, Nathan Fillion, Ravka, Robin LaFevers, Russia, Shadow and Bone, Swedish Chef, The Hunger Games, The Neverending Story