Bullied for her Jewish faith and relative lack of wealth by rich kids at school, she was also “very unhappy” at home. But though she was born in Jerusalem, Bardugo was raised in Los Angeles, a precocious reader, as lonely children often are. With her dark lipstick and gothic clothing, often seen with a silver-headed cane (Bardugo has osteonecrosis), the 46-year-old is the antithesis of California beach culture. ‘Our plan is it will be quite different from the books.’ Jessie Mei Li as Alina in Shadow and Bone. When I see someone deride things that women and girls find pleasure in, all I see is someone fearful that women will overtake the culture they’ve had dominion over for so long.” When you start dictating culture, money gets involved and people take notice. “To me, that contempt speaks to a deep fear. “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. They are popular for the same reasons snobs may mock them: they’re nerdy, romantic and appealing to young women. But Bardugo’s books are unique in a few ways: their rich, tsarist Russia-inspired setting her ornate social hierarchies and magic systems Alina’s prickliness. So Alina is whisked away from her dishy childhood friend Mal to be trained by the equally dishy Darkling, a Ravkan general who wields the shadow to her sun, and holds a secret, vested interest in her power.Ī special, magical girl with two boys fighting over her: so far, so YA. She is the Sun Summoner of prophecy with the power to destroy the Fold, a gigantic, shadowy zone filled with dark creatures that has split Ravka for centuries.

She is an orphan conscripted to the First Army, a non-magical force in the kingdom of Ravka that serves as cannon fodder, when an accident reveals that she is actually a Grisha, one of the mysterious magical elite who are usually identified in childhood and form Ravka’s feared Second Army. Like Twilight’s Bella or Katniss from The Hunger Games, Bardugo’s Alina is yanked from obscurity.

They are filled with high emotional stakes and transformative life moments – whether that is a first kiss or discovering you are a powerful sorcerer with the potential to save the world. Her seven YA books, starting with Shadow and Bone, meet very fundamental human desires – to be recognised as special, powerful or loved. To understand how popular Bardugo’s books are – more than 5m sold in English, translated into 50 languages, a No1 show on Netflix and countless passionate fans, including one Tiktoker steadily adapting the books into an unofficial musical – is to understand why young adult fiction itself is so significant.

Shadow bone book