These reviews are spoiler-free.
The Witch of Duva by Leigh Bardugo
Series: Shadow and Bone #0.5
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Novella
Release Date: June 5th 2012 by Tor
Format: eBook, 15 pages
Rating: ★★★★☆
Find it here: Goodreads
I enjoyed that a lot, even though it ended up being pretty easy to see where the story was going once it certain things had become clear. As always, Bardugo’s writing style is a great fit for this kind of story, and the flow works really well as a folk tale. You can see the hints of the world it comes from in the telling, but you can also read this as coming from another world, as it’s a folk tale without mention of Grisha (the particular fantastical people of Bardugo’s world), which was possibly the part I was most disappointed in. I was expecting a little more relation to the world it comes from, but there are bits.
The Too-Clever Fox by Leigh Bardugo
Series: Shadow and Bone #2.5
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Novella
Release Date: June 4th 2013 by Tor Books
Format: eBook, 32 pages
Rating: ★★★★☆
Find it here: Goodreads
Not as impressed with this one as I was with the first, possibly because they held similar moral-of-the-story type things, almost. You know, like folk tales are supposed to. I guess it was just too similar of a moral. I liked the story, but I wasn’t as into it as I was with Witch of Duva, and I also felt that this one didn’t end as strongly as the previous one had. It wrapped itself up a little too fast once the twist was given, and I wanted a little more from it.
Little Knife by Leigh Bardugo
Series: Shadow and Bone #2.6
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Novella
Release Date: June 24th 2014 by Tor Books
Format: eBook, 32 pages
Rating: ★★★★☆
Find it here: Goodreads
I really enjoyed this one. I thought it was so interesting watching how others would react around the girl in the story, and how she was expected to react in turn despite literally everyone around her being who they are because of how beautiful she is. The ending wasn’t QUITE what I wanted it to be, but I think that’s because it’s a folk tale, and I’ve always expected more out of short stories than I probably should have. I tend to want more than they give, and they’re not meant to give that much. It was a very nice end to the folk tales, and Bardugo really is great at writing these.
Reading these, surprisingly, makes me recall A Monster Calls, which I had read just previously to these. I won’t explain why, but if you’ve read it and the novellas, then you probably know what I’m getting at. Obviously they weren’t central to understanding The Grisha Trilogy, but they were interesting enough to read and I enjoyed them quite a bit.
I hope Bardugo writes more!
Thanks for reading!
