If you’re excited for the second season of Netflix’s Grishaverse series, Shadow and Bone, and you want to read the Leigh Bardugo YA series it’s adapting, don’t start with the first book in the series. Instead, start with Six of Crows, which is an objectively better novel. Here’s why, along with the best order to read the rest of the Shadow and Bone books in.
If you’re super excited about season 2 of Netflix’s Shadow and Bone series and you’ve never read the Leigh Bardugo books it’s based on, you might be thinking about trying the main trilogy the show adapts.
Here’s some unsolicited advice: Don’t start with the first novel, Shadow and Bone. Or even the first trilogy.
But wait, you might ask yourself, is that not the book that the show is based on? Isn’t it the first book of the series? The one that sets the stage for everything else? The one that introduces the Grisha, Sun Summoner Alina Starkov, and the swath of sentient darkness that tears Ravka in half? Isn’t season 2 going to adapt the second book?
Well, yes. But you know how some Star Wars fans recommend a non-intuitive order to watch the movies? I’m about to suggest a similar strategy for diving into the Grishaverse books. It isn’t a particularly controversial method, by any means, but for those unfamiliar with the books, I am here to be your Grisha guide.
And with that: Start with Six of Crows. But… why?
Six of Crows is the first book in Bardugo’s spinoff duology. It focuses on a band of criminals led by the cunning Kaz Brekker as they pull off a grand heist. The duology takes place two years after the events of the first trilogy, but the first book doesn’t really contain any spoilers for what happens to Shadow and Bone’s Alina, the Darkling, and the rest of the Ravka crew. I have no hard empirical data on this, but I would hazard a guess that Six of Crows is more popular than the main trilogy. Why else would the Crows characters be roped into the show, even though they don’t canonically appear in the first books?
Newbies starting to read the series with Six of Crows after watching the show won’t be lost, since out of the six “Crows,” five of them — Kaz, his right-hand knife-wielding spy Inej, sharpshooter Jesper, Ravkan spy Nina, and Fjerdan soldier (and hunter of Grisha) Matthias — appeared in season 1 of the TV series.
