Hannah

I read it so you don't have to. Seriously don't waste your time .

Okay so here's the thing. I read this because of a few reasons. 1. It is considered be a national treasure of France 2. It is constantly listed as one of the most horrifying books people have ever read

Yes this book is disgusting and made my skin crawl and made me hate humanity. Yes I understand this book is a rough draft and was written while the author was imprisoned at the Bastille. Yes it supposed to shed light on the darkest parts of the human mind.

Considering all of this, the book is still BAD. The writing doesn't make sense in most places and where is does make sense it is equally boring as it is disgusting.

C'mon France you can do better about picking your national treasures. Page after page of people eating shit and a terrible writing doesn't deserve all this attention. Be better.

I can't right now. Holy hell. This book was everything. Everything. Above the way it's written, it made me laugh and cry and fear and cheer and all the things a good book should. But it told an amazing tale of how the bad don't always turn good and the ones who save us aren't always heros. It tackled things like PTSD and addiction with grace and drew attention to them and showed how serious they are, but didn't take away from the story to do so, the problems of the characters was woven into the story with such perfection. I can't handle it. I will be rereading this book over and over and over again

There's not much I can stay about the plot without giving it away, but the book is wonderfully written and doesn't feel horribly suspenseful but more it gently holds your hand and guides through a flower garden until you reach the end and you turn around and see the flower garden was actually a graveyard. You spend the whole book knowing something is off and weird and you second guess yourself and try to figure it out but then the truth is revealed and you feel betrayed by your own mind and feelings and it's just wild.

This book was the kind of book I would have adored when I was in Middle school and high school. I would have read this whole series overnight.

Alas I'm a bit older now and my views have changed. I also had the great privilege to read Six of Crows first. Which is arguably written for an older audience. Shadow and Bone is obviously written for a younger crowd, it still covers heavy topics and covers them well. But the “very special girl” and love triangle tropes are written with a certain audience in mind and because of that I found some parts extremely predictable and blah. I felt the same way about the Shatter Me series. It's something a younger me would have loved this and I still do like it but just not as much as I would have.

After months I'm finally marking this as DNF. It's too boring and bland and ugh. I just can't.