the grishaverse books

Books Recommendation: The Grishaverse Books

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You’ll find lots of interesting information, book reviews and recommendations, stories and articles from our students…and, why not, from our teachers.

I hope something grabs your attention, you’ll enjoy the content you find here, and you’ll interact with us.

For our first post, I have a recommendation for our teen students. A fantasy series, quite popular on booktok and bookstagram: the Grishaverse books! Have you heard of them? They’re marvelous!

The books are divided in 3 as follows:

  1. trilogy: Shadow and Bone, Ruin and Rising, Siege and Storm
  2. duology: Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom
  3. duology: King of Scars, Rule of Wolves

If you want to read in chronological order, start with the Shadow and Bone trilogy and meet Alina Starkov, Sun Summoner, and Ravka’s only hope for salvation. In these ones you learn about what a Grisha is, how and why Alina is important. You also meet the villan – The Darkling. For me, it’s a villain I quite like…

You can also start with the Six of Crows Duology – you won’t be lost – where you join up with Kaz Brekker’s crew of thugs and thieves. This duology takes place two years after the end of the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, but focuses on a new set of characters and different plots in a different country. Grisha appear, but you’re not lost – you can catch the idea of what they do.

This last duology, King of Scars, picks up back in Ravka, one year after the end of the Six of Crows Duology. You can start here, but we recommend reading the other books in the Grishaverse first if you want to avoid spoilers…and to understand what exactly goes on with the king and his country.

I, personally, started with the Crows duology. I had no idea they’re connected to the others. You can watch season 1 of Shadow and Bone on Netflix. The TV show mixes information from Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows. I watched the season because I saw Ben Barnes playing the bad guy – and he does an excellent job! So while reading Six of Crows, I found some information familiar and that’s when it dawned on me: I know these things, I’ve seen them in the Netflix show I watched a few months earlier! So I googled more information about the books and I discovered this amazing universe. I got wrapped into it, I loved every bit of it, the characters are amazing (although, you might hate a couple of them). I laughed, I cried…these books take you through a rollercoaster of emotions! And the author knows how to keep you on the edge…

The conclusion? If you like fantasy, go grab the books and read them!

Laura Elena Stancu – English Teacher

Details:

Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: fantasy, young adult
Book type: fiction
Publishers (in Romania): Orion (English version); Trei (Romanian version)
Recommended age: Shadow and Bone trilogy – 12+; Six of Crows & King of Scars duologies – 14+ (the age range recommendation given by the publisher is 12-17; in Romania, carturesti.ro says 16+ for these books)
Author’s website: www.leighbardugo.com (if you’d like more information & see what else she wrote).

Photo credits: www.leighbardugo.com