Hi everyone! It’s the one you’ve all been waiting for……well maybe you haven’t but I have! After a couple of months of promising you that I would talk about Shadow and Bone Season 2 and the book(s) it is based on (because yes, it uses more than one!), I am finally going to be talking about it today as I finished it a couple of weeks ago (it only took me so long to finish because I’ve been busy, I really did enjoy it!).
Book Thoughts:
I definitely liked Siege and Storm the best out of the three original Grisha trilogy books, of the three books, I think it has the most substance when it comes to the plot and I loved being introduced to all of the new characters, especially Nikolai, who is hands down my favourite character of this trilogy. Ruin & Rising, I had slightly more mixed feelings about. It felt like basically nothing happened in the book until the end which felt a little ridiculous to me given that the book is only 350 odd pages long, and whilst I did like some of the payoff with regards to the Darkling’s backstory, I found the final battle somewhat anti-climactic. I also wasn’t a fan of the ending that Bardugo chose for Alina, and felt the book could have done without the epilogue as it seemed to mostly be there to satisfy the shippers. Here are my full reviews of both books if you want to see my more detailed thoughts:
TV Thoughts:

I know some of the choices made in the second season have been somewhat polarising, but I actually really enjoyed it. I think it was a good idea to combine the second & third books into one season as a) on a practical level with Netflix cancelling shows so quickly these days, finishing off the trilogy in two seasons at least means that we get a conclusion to that story and b) I honestly don’t think either book has enough plot on its own to fill out a whole season so combining them together made a lot of sense to me. Again I liked the Crows sections better than the Shadow and Bone sections, though as I anticipated, having Nikolai involved in the story really lifted things for me from the first season.
As with the first season, Matthias’ storyline didn’t really seem to fit and again I understand why his section in Hellgate was included as a book fan, but if you were just watching the show, it wouldn’t make much sense. I loved getting to see Nina with the Crows, and along with Nikolai, Wylan was an ABSOLUTE highlight of this season for me, I love him so much. As with the first season, I did feel like some parts were slightly rushed and again, I maybe would have liked them to have had one or two more episodes. I generally think they did a good job with what to include from the books and what to take out and I think they covered all the important parts whilst missing out some of the more boring bits of the books (THANK GOODNESS FOR THE LACK OF THE APPARAT). The only things I would say that I missed was Genya’s confrontation with the King because I LOVED THAT scene in the book, but she does have an equally satisfying confrontation with the Queen to replace it so that softened the blow a little. The final battle was still a little anti-climactic for me, but on the whole it was FAR BETTER than in the book and I loved having the Crows involved, and they took the ending in a slightly different direction than Ruin and Rising which for me was much better. I was kind of surprised that they integrated some of Crooked Kingdom with having Pekka Rollins be a big part of the Crows storyline here, but I think it did work overall.
TV or Book Judgement?:
Again, I think I would go with the TV show here, I would have liked more of the Crows again but then that’s just me preferring the Crows to Alina and Mal! Overall, I really liked what they did with the second season of the show, I think combining the final two books was the right choice and made for a much more exciting season than a whole season of Siege & Storm or a whole season of Ruin & Rising would have and I absolutely loved all the new characters introduced this season, especially Nikolai and Wylan but also Tamar and Tolya, the actors played their characters so well and slotted into the cast so neatly, it was like they were always there. The ending hints at setting up the story of Six of Crows and that seems to be the logical next place to go, I really want to finally see all six together, but they have said they want to do the Six of Crows storyline as a spinoff alongside the main show, so I guess we’ll just have to see what happens and whether Netflix renews them.
That’s it for this month’s Book Vs Movie, I know my thoughts were a little lengthier than usual, but hey, it turns out I have a lot of them! I’ll be back next month with a new Book Vs Movie, this time I’ll be talking about PS I Love You and its movie adaptation.
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