Shadow and Bone

first of all, I read this a few weeks ago and could SWEAR I left a review of it already but there's no sign of it so...that might be out in the void somewhere, IDK.

Anyway, I read and loved Six of Crows, and I'd heard that it was set in the same ~world~ as the Grisha trilogy but I didn't need to read the Grisha trilogy to get SOC, so I didn't, just because people were raving about Six of Crows, and the general plot of it seemed more relevant to my interests than this trilogy.

Months later, I decided to check this trilogy out, since I did love Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom so much! This was...good, but definitely less in my personal wheelhouse than SOC. There's a lot more worldbuilding and Grisha abilities here, so if that's your personal jam I'd definitely recommend this. I prefer the “ragtag found family heist crew” situation to the “dramatically fraught love triangle” situation here but if you're looking for some beautiful angst, ooh there's plenty of that. (If you're looking for the queer love present in SOC, not so much.)

Anyway, it's a great first fantasy novel that just doesn't happen to cater as much to my personal tastes as Six of Crows, YMMV.