As soon as The Chupacabras was mentioned, I reminisced about my childhood, it made me feel like I was 9 years old again and sparks of joy grew in my chest when the demigods were mentioned as semidioses and the simple fact that Teo is a trans and latino teenager.

It has the non-binary representation I didn't know I needed. I couldn't boil down my excitement when I realized they were talking about not fitting into a gender binary.

During the trials, Teo doesn't have a superpower that comes out of the blue that saves him and makes his way to the top, he just does his best, which makes him more relatable.

One of my best reads of this years and probably will be a favorite.

"I would burn a thousand villages, sacrifice a thousand lives to keep you safe".

An interesting short story that captivated me since the beginning. It starts with the Grisha, also known as witches, that have powers to control three different elements. A woman and his son arrive to a camp with a different identity to be as invisible as possible.

Erik meets Annika, a girl with a weak power. Erik finds himself trapped in Annika's greed, but thanks to his powers, he's able to get out and run away.

Every character has a well defined personality that can be told apart from each other and it was so interesting I couldn't put it down, it was just enough to make the reader want to read more of the Grishaverse.

Nadya is a lively little girl living with his father in a town where girls disappear, so they have to be careful they come home before the last ray of light.

Nadya doesn't like her dad's new wife, Karina, and the feeling is mutual, so she tries to get rid of Nadya with the excuse of being a useful daughter. When it gets dark in the woods, Nadya runs away and ends up in a witch's house where she's welcome to stay and learns about the witch's ways.

It's the kind of creepy stories I am into, like, not completely horror, but creepy enough to make me go "woah, did that just happen?"

Shadow and bone, as well as Siege and Storm, easily transports you to an unexplored world that the characters make sure you discover it with them. Not only Alina, but everyone else tackle new struggles, which is the reason it makes you keep reading.

I like how the romance is in suspense until after halfway through the book, not making it one of the main themes. It works well as it is (even when I was conflicted by it at times, I then knew the reason why some things were the way they were).

The Grishaverse has me on a chokehold, it's addictive!

"The trap is loneliness, and none of us escapes it".

Love it when people write stories about animals that can easily communicate with humans. Everything about it was unexpected and had me on edge about the next thing that was going to happen.

Making the fox ugly and others reminding him of it made me root for him and empathize with him.

He think he's so clever that he will find a solution to the hunter killing all his loved ones, but meeting Sofiya is going to change that.

"To use a thing is not to own it".

I didn't like the end, it was too.. meh.

"You should know by now, an orphan has no home".

Throughout the Grishaverse, we see a whole culture with tales, some written as another book or some just told in a few lines. I've only seen a few books do that —tell the stories, the myths, the legends in a culture where it's either completely fictional or it's real.

We see Alina evolve, and that might be my favorite part of the Shadow and bone trilogy, as Sankta Alina, as the people call her. She gets stronger, more solemn, she has more confidence in herself and what she's capable of.

I took my time with this one, though it felt like it took me years to read and I say this in a good way, it was like I lived inside the book. I am enamoured by Leigh Bardugo's pen.