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A review by jadeeby
The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman
3.0
Originally posted on my blog Chasing Empty Pavements
This book was floating around the blogosphere like crazy last year, and I *finally* got around to reading it. I remembered people getting confused because it came in the rush of books with similar titles-- Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (which I've read and reviewed) and Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (which I haven't). I felt like people had great things to say about all three of these titles and I can see why this book got great reviews.
The first half of this book BLEW. ME. AWAY. The opening line! The characters! The beautiful, lyrical sentences! I fell for it all. Especially Nora. I really fell in love with her. She was an atypical character for me--a girl who was more concerned with ancient Latin than boys. A girl obsessed with letters from a dead girl instead of drinking or partying. I just loved it. I loved that there was a very creepy, mysterious element to the story right away and that Wasserman worked up to the action. I love historical, mystery type of novels so this one really hit the spot for me.
While I LOVED the first half of this novel, the second half started to sag. I felt bored and skimmed a lot. It's like once the action started--it didn't make things go faster--it slowed it WAY down. Also once the mystery started unfolding--I hate to admit that it started to go above my head a little bit. I felt like I was constantly missing some important piece of information that would make it all make sense but that never came. I had a feeling who the killer was but once it was confirmed--it almost felt anti-climatic. I wish that could have been hyped up some more.
verall, I enjoyed reading this novel. It reminded me of the YA version of The Da Vinci Code which I liked. So if you're a fan of books like The Da Vinci Code or the movie National Treasure (yes, I just went there), you'll LOVE this book. It's a bit different from the other YA stuff out there right now so I recommend giving this one a try!
**I received this book free from the publisher through www.netgalley.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
This book was floating around the blogosphere like crazy last year, and I *finally* got around to reading it. I remembered people getting confused because it came in the rush of books with similar titles-- Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (which I've read and reviewed) and Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (which I haven't). I felt like people had great things to say about all three of these titles and I can see why this book got great reviews.
The first half of this book BLEW. ME. AWAY. The opening line! The characters! The beautiful, lyrical sentences! I fell for it all. Especially Nora. I really fell in love with her. She was an atypical character for me--a girl who was more concerned with ancient Latin than boys. A girl obsessed with letters from a dead girl instead of drinking or partying. I just loved it. I loved that there was a very creepy, mysterious element to the story right away and that Wasserman worked up to the action. I love historical, mystery type of novels so this one really hit the spot for me.
While I LOVED the first half of this novel, the second half started to sag. I felt bored and skimmed a lot. It's like once the action started--it didn't make things go faster--it slowed it WAY down. Also once the mystery started unfolding--I hate to admit that it started to go above my head a little bit. I felt like I was constantly missing some important piece of information that would make it all make sense but that never came. I had a feeling who the killer was but once it was confirmed--it almost felt anti-climatic. I wish that could have been hyped up some more.
verall, I enjoyed reading this novel. It reminded me of the YA version of The Da Vinci Code which I liked. So if you're a fan of books like The Da Vinci Code or the movie National Treasure (yes, I just went there), you'll LOVE this book. It's a bit different from the other YA stuff out there right now so I recommend giving this one a try!
**I received this book free from the publisher through www.netgalley.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.