Parts of this book are hilarious if you know anything about Russian culture. The wizards are called Grisha. Grisha/Grischa is a diminutive of the name Grigori/Grigorij/Grigory (a nod to Rasputin? idk). It's Greg. The wizards are called Greg. This is the Gregverse. Ben Barnes dramatically tells Alina, "You are Greg. You are not alone." Any rewrite/fix of this book must include a blanket, "The surnames are fixed, and no one is called Greg anymore" statement.

Speaking as a Russian - Ravka is a collection of vaguely Russian-shaped things that also knowingly disregards how the language works and how naming conventions work (like I can't emphasize enough how *silly* calling your magical beings "Grisha" sounds in Russian. Kind of like calling super-powered beings The Annie, except sillier). In the end, it just feels shallow and weirdly off.

Ah, a review of a book posted a day before the premier of the second season, I see what you did there.... the algorithm gods will be pleased *smiles ominously*

I sometimes mistake extreme readability for quality. Like when I finished the book I said it was super good, but the truth is that I just couldn’t stop reading it and wanted to know what would happen next. Six of crows is so much better.

Alina’s suppression of her identity and the effects that come with it is a very confusing detail when you consider how the trilogy ends. Like, suppressing her powers makes her sickly and weak while facing her powers instantly restores her health and strength. Soooo you would think that her using her powers more would be considered a good thing for her personal development right? Except in the books after this her powers are demonized and treated as a symbol of greed and darkness that she could succumb to. Especially weird considering that the Grisha are a persecuted and exploited group of people in the trilogy

The names in this book are a mess 😅 Ilya Morozova left me speechless 😂

it's crazy to compare shadow and bone to six of crows, leigh bardugo 's writing developed so much

01:27:50 --> okay, the idea here is that the Grisha will be obsolete with the advancement of technology (particularly for warfare) since that has been their one leverage in the face of the long history of discrimination by Ravka and it's neighboring nations. The Darkling, in creating the second army, made the one safe haven for Grisha to live under the monarchy by being useful to it. So, if technology advances to the extent that the Grisha can no longer leverage how uniquely useful they are for the war effort, their powers wouldn't fade or anything, but their status regresses to the good old days of being openly hunted down and executed as they are currently in Fjerda. Weaponizing themselves is the only way they've been able to have any kind of protection within Ravka and it's mostly thanks to the Darkling. That's why he still has loyalists especially amongst the older Grisha.

The nazi and the snow maiden are also part of Six of Crows but they join them at the very beginning of the book cause they need the nazi man specifically for reasons I will not spoil. What they showed in the first season was literally their backstory that was mentioned thorough the book to add context of where these two character came from. i do agree it distracted from the main plot of the tv show but it worked for me in the books cause it felt more organic.

Hot girl + Nazi was the greatest character reduction I've ever heard, thanks for the laugh

I really liked the six of crows duology, I’d be interested to see what you guys think about it!

Super aggressively mid is exactly how I would describes the books. I don't hate them but I would never reread. My mom had bought me the grisha trilogy and the six of crows duology and I was hesitant to start SOC but im so glad I did loll. Six of crows was sooo enjoyable and gripping. Leigh really improved as an author and quite quickly too. Also the only part I felt strongly about in the grisha trilogy was how much I disliked Mal.

I understood the whole "small science" thing as a way to differentiate between magic, which does exist in the series, and what the grisha do. Magic goes against nature, and therefore isn't natural, whereas the small science follows the in-book laws of nature. So it isn't science how we see it, but it was internally consistent.

I felt the same about being an orphan from Rin in Poppy War. She was so nonchalant & sassy with her abusive adoptive mother & later at the school. She felt like an entitled opinionated twitter teen, not a war orphan smh

The trilogy definitely has issues (I regret to inform you all that at the end of it, Alina gets stripped of her powers and goes back to the orphanage with Mal except now she's the headmistress - that's it, that's the change that happens), and I've heard the follow up duology is even...worse. It's not even that a character's ending can't end in the same place they began, but something needs to change. Alina starts out with no powers & wanting to be with Mal no matter what, and the ending is written specifically for her to go back to that. Like in Uprooted, Agnieszka starts and ends in the village with her family, but she's developed! She learns to use magic, she's become more confident in herself. (I looked up what happened in the series before the show came out to kinda gauge if I would want to watch it, since I had 0 interest in reading it fully - I read an excerpt, it didn't grab my attention.) A friend tried to read it in preparation for the Netflix show and when it got to the point where Mal is basically annoyed that Alina is eating more because she feels better from not actively suppressing her powers, stopped and was like "this is supposed to be the endgame love interest?? wtf"

I've read the Six of Crows duology. It's fine. Pleasant enough. I think the first book is much stronger than the second.

Ben Barnes is literally perfect. I almost unsubbed. j/k The show and the actors improved a lot of what is wrong with Shadow and Bone, and Six of Crows. Both are mediocre YA novels and the show elevated them to slightly above average. I was so disappointed when I tried to read Shadow and Bone. I didn't even make it 20 pages. It was total "not like other girls" wish fulfillment.

The problem I ended up having with Alina towards Genya is how... Alina just victim blames her and diminishes her trauma... which makes how they end up going all Royalist Agenda worse, because the r*pist king tops gets a luxurious exhile. And yeahhh Bardugo absolutely baited the whole idea of Darklina and then turned and mocked everyone by bringing in lobotimized Alina from the KoS duology to work as her author mouthpiece to say how dumb everyone was for daring to not like her ending and how her perfect ending was to stop being part of the oppressed minority she never liked and ending in the same orphanage she started at with Mal.

I love the post apocalyptic UTT fanfic that was spontaneously generated during this discussion

thanks Maria! The romance with the darkling is supposed to be creepy and off putting, his actor is disturbed by how fans recived it, the books make a clear point against it later but somehow toxic became the thing to be for the dream guy of many girls . . .

I hope you guys do Rule of Wolves. Nikolai is my favorite character in the entire franchise

I second having characters that are ACTUALLY GOOD at their jobs, ones they CHOOSE To have

Commenting for the algorithm. Seeing you guys post out of the blue was a neat surprise!

I love how William shows tender spot for the bitchy girls. He's like the female version of a weakness for the snarky bad boy. I love Genya, and if they hurt her man on the show, I'm smashing my TV and setting it a blaze! 🔥🖥🔥

Okay A) REWRITE! After you've read the whole trilogy of course, but yes please, rewrite! I would love to have your take on this series because the bones are there and good, it's just the rest of it that's the problem. B) My biggest problem with this whole series is that it so heavily and recklessly dives head first into two of my most hated, and high key problematic, tropes. The "revolutionary/freedom fighter/protector of an oppressed minority group is the ruthless evil we need to fight actually" and *MILD SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE SERIES* the "good guys are protectors of the status quo who will defeat the bad guy but not meaningfully/radically change the circumstances that created him". The entire trilogy is the most unholy marriage between these two tropes. I will concede that they can be done well, but this series is not an example of that. It lacks the nuance to pull it off. Leigh Bardugou, who is Jewish, has in a few interviews drawn a direct line between the plight of the Grisha and the Jewish people (though she is careful to emphasis that it's not meant to be allegorical) but I can't help but see how her books ultimately reflect real world attitudes towards liberation efforts of minorities and it makes the careless mishandling of these tropes incredibly aggravating. It's the Magneto problem but somehow worse. Every other problem I have with the series, character arcs, worldbuilding, resolution, etc. etc., are all rooted in these two tropes. C) "Prince Caspian" altered my brain chemistry as a kid so thoroughly that the idea of someone not finding Ben Barnes attractive is literally inconceivable to me

i first read shadow and bone as a 12 year old and at the time i was reading so many ya fantasies (it was during the peak of this style of book I guess?) that i didn't find it very original and didn't like it very much. what happened later though (i was maybe 13?) i began writing my own fantasy novel and at some point i gave up on the idea. in 2021 i decided to reread shadow and bone in order to watch the show and i came to the realization that... my fantasy novel was basically a copy of shadow and bone. i plagiarized a book i didn't even like lol

I would absolutely love a video where y'all rewrite this book/series into an anime (and keep the sapphic love interest idea, yes please!) Overall, I loved this video!

After watching the second season I realized that I really want you to read Six Of Crows, then watch the said season and rip it to shreds. I want it obliterated. Nothing left. Erased from memory.

I’m pretty sure I saw online that Grisha means Greg in Russian 😭

Stranger Things unintentionally made a better "The Fold" in the "Upside Down" than Leigh Bardugo and Netflix.

I kind of wanted to read the book, but not really because most times I read the source material for a TV show I realize how much the screen adaptation sucks. In truth, all I needed was the UTT review :D Awesome job, as always! Hope those 20k subs happen soon, Maria! #forthealgorithm

I've watched this video 8 times solely for the part where Katie mentions the author reading Wikipedia for research. Also, it would seem the whole Mal+Alina dynamic is supposed to be one of those 'they're like brother and sister' romances where he thinks of her as a sister but she thinks of him as the best human being ever, but he has eyes for someone else, while she yerns for him to finally see her in a romantic way, but the whole thing wasn't really developed right and fell flat. Best example of this trope when it is done right is Molly+Roger from Wives and Daughters.

I also didn't understand why Alina believed Baghra so quickly

I watched the show but haven't read the book. In the TV series I found Alina annoying and I literally thought Mal and Alina were going to turn out to be brother and sister... I actually thought the Darkling was the best character which upset me since he's the villain.😢

Who would deny ben barnes is attractive looking? Maye not the mot atractive, but be is pretty conventional pretty. I mean i remember thinkig so rom the narnia movies. He is charming, he plays a charming prince really well. Oh yeah i think he isnt a bad actor eithr but he is pretty in a conventional sense for sure. At least with a YA target. That said i didn watch th how, maybe he is creepy barnes there. Also dunno that should be in a comic there i guess, but it would make sense that with the industrialisation lighning bending i more important. An i dont know headvcanon the firelord family claimd that as their right and stole it from someone, n anyone trying, would be herecy and dangerous, And ok, another eadcanon, zuko has a militaried nation on hand, and wants to give people power, so he trains soldiers, and ex soldiers into lightning to, well industrialize, because they already industrialized, but yeah now less militarized, and reirecting irebenders to produce electricity would b a smart move to pacify. And that why its common, its made common, by zuko, among ex iremnation army people that they can be productive. I mean that could be in a story and book they no make, on the inbetween. why that common, but the lightning being common makes a lot o sense in an indutrialization, i like zuko made eort to spread it to make his ex army not go rogue. A lot o that can be headcanoned into, the unpresidented era o peace and coopertion allowing them going steampunk. And i would guess zuko starting the industrial age to demilitarize might make sense and lighning, is just ueul, why not teach basic lightning over tim to most firebnders the manga magi did actually a good world, including a magic school, tthat also is, wizards got used then the cancellor became magician suprematist. really nice narrative it it works

I am SOOOO with Maria on this one. Everyone raved about Bardugo in like 2016 and I read SoC and it was SO SO SO DISAPPOINTING. I was promised 'high fantasy heist' and what I got was a shoddily made Not-Victorian-Europe From-An-American-PoV where *no cliffhanger got its payoff* because we ALWAYS had to jump back to a flashback scene - and the only guy remotely invested in progressing the plot was the nazi-coded nordic. It was. Such a slog.

Yes! I need that rewrite.

lol Katie I got the exact same brochure in Australia the other day!!

Please do six of crows and crooked kingdom!!

Interested to watch this, hope the book is better than the show... Too many inconsistencies for me: where was the backstory for the monarchy? Why did some place names come up on the screen but others not? Far too many soppy subplots and the attempts at humour really fell flat. Not to mention the obligatory diversity nonsense they ALWAYS throw in any post 2010 show (women are better at everything nd there's loads of gays we get it yawn!) In the plus column, very aesthetic and good portrayal of how power corrupts. If they'd just not had the diversity stuff and made parallels between Kaz and Dubrov, covered the monarchy background and had the more experienced actors in the goofy roles it could have been good. Ooooh and great performance from the guy who played Kaz, he was one of the high points.

y’all should read her other grisha books, the six of crows and crooked kingdom - i definitely felt more of a world presence there!

I thought with the testing she cut her hand because you can’t be clocked if you’re in pain

Also nevermind how every Asian-coded charaxter is either a mercenary or a fanatic pirate (the Twins next book/season)

The full length skirt problem... lol. I was thinking the same thing.

"She's a whole bag of suckfest" perfect 😆

PRAISE to the algorithm gods, may this video please them. (Also kind of wish I'd read this one this month as I feel like I need to redeem my YA tastes after Little Thieves 🤣)

A friend lend the books to me last year and it took me until last month to finish them. Especially the second book is soooo boring when they just hang out at the palace and no one talks about anything and all the reader feels is frustration that neither plot nor characters progress. I read that DC tie in book that Bardugo wrote and it's pretty good so the mediocrity of this trilogy confused me to no end. But then I read in the acknowledgements her thanking SJM VE Schwab and Veronica Roth and I think that explains a lot. Also allow me to rant about something no one cares about: the german translation is so bad. There are spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes. Multiple times there are spaces and punctuation marks missing. The formating is so riddled with errors that multiple times I was confused to who was saying what. I can't imagine spending real human money and then receive such an unfinished product.

I am really ALL HERE for the Darklina relationship, but I want it as she is the one constantly pursuing him--consciously to use her light to chase out the dark in him and make him powerless. He is like "Heckin no, I see what you're doing to me," but he's slowly accepting her. Mal and Bogra are the villains because, for different reasons, they need the Darkling to be evil.

One thing that REALLY frustrates me about this series is its absurd whitewashing of Russia. I don't think either Bardugo or the show producers realise Russia used to be a massive empire & its demographics as of now are 200+ different ethnic groups. Making Alina Asian is a tiny, minuscle step in the right direction (so points to the show) but still an incredibly lazy one. One, there should be FAR more Asian and Middle Eastern people on the screen, even before we come to other minorities. Two, I hate how generic all the cultural coding in this series is. Everything is nebulously "Russian" or nebulously "idk China??" (I don't care its fantasy. If Bardugo didn't want me to nitpick on it, she shouldn't have made references to a specific resognizable culture. If I wrote about fantasy USA and there were no Black people or Native Americans in my book, people would say "Hey, isn't it kinda weird and maybe kinda sorta problematic?").

Yes! Why didn't she kill the Darkling??

Is David or Daniel?

This was interesting to watch. Thanks!

Ben Barnes is, and always will be to me, Jigsaw (Billy Russo). Watch him in the Punisher series if you haven't yet. Just crazy good. Smooth charisma mixed with manic psychosis and narcissism. I don't give a flying fuck about Shadow and Bone at all (book or tv show). Ben is great though. Great casting choice.

I need a story called The Hot Girl and the Nazi

More like shadow and bored

I HAVE indeed been living under a rock

37:43 underappreciated comment, it made me laugh so hard lol

Disembodied William evil laugh isn't real. It cannot hurt you. Disembodied William evil laugh: 3:27

Omg random but I love and can relate to the talk of camels XD I feel that! XD

Do 6 of crows

i NEED a rewrite

I love Korra 😛

Will going 'no homo bro' 😂😂

Smoke and Bone sounds like The Menagerie meets Gandalf puffing his pipe

The show could have been better but LB had too much control

Authors should try to reign in their own "peculiar interests" while writing. Weird kinks ruin so many modern books. Edit: I don't like WoT, but it's got good world building.

I remember as a russian being so excited, they cast an Asian actress to play the main character because of how sick I am of blond blue eyed "russians" in us media and how little the diversity and Asian ethnicities withing russia get shown. I thought the actress did a fantastic job, but absolutely hated that they had to make her a half-blood to tack on really awkward racist remarks. I watched the first season with my bf at a time who happened to be mixed and it was more hilarious then actually serious how characters turned to the camera to just randomly be racist to her. As if them sharing a boarder with "her" people would not mean a bunch of mixed babies running around. Also yeah, she is not "russian" but it is pretty obvious which culture is getting a share here.

I'm glad Katie called out how Ben Barnes is not the hunk he is made out to be

1000 chittering birds 😂😂😂😂

As someone who was underweight at 17 and overweight at 27 I would much rather be told to eat a hamburger than look in the mirror at my rolls. 🤷🏼‍♀️ So I don't really sympathize with the "skinny shame" it's not a real shame, it's an obvious insecurity cope every. single. time.

It's not that hard to get underneath a long skirt. 😂😂😂😂