Her seven YA books, starting with Shadow and Bone, meet very fundamental human desires – to be recognised as special, powerful or loved. “Teenage girls have so much sway over culture, yet people sneer at the things that women and girls love, and are contemptuous of the creators of that content, particularly if they are women,” Bardugo says. This last job freed her from writing, so she could finally concentrate on her first book, 2012’s Shadow and Bone. I always lost momentum, I had no idea what I was doing.” She wrote Shadow and Bone in eight months. “I am very proud of Shadow and Bone but it is laden with tropes,” Bardugo says.

Source: The Guardian May 17, 2021 06:00 UTC