Shadow and Bone theme and summary

I've been reading the book Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo.  First off, let me say that this book is awesome!  The author includes strong imagery into her book to allow you to envision each scene as if it where happening on a TV screen in front of you.  She also uses other styles of figurative language to increase the understanding and visualization of the book. An example of this is "He nodded at me and spread his arms wide.  A tense silence descended as his hands filled with dark, swirling ribbons of blackness that bled into the air.  He brought his hands together with a resounding crack.  Nervous cries burst from the crowd as darkness blanketed the room.... Light flooded the throne room, drenching us in warmth and shattering the darkness like black glass. The court erupted into applause."  (Bardugo, 105-106).  This shows the authors great style of imagery, as well as an example of figurative language.  In this passage, she uses a simile, "...shattering the darkness like black glass." This helps you envision the blackness that surrounded the main character, Alina, and the Darkling, who is referred to as he in the passage, shattering as the light that Alina produces overpowers the Darklings black shadows. 

One of the themes in Shadow and Bone is no matter how hard you struggle to reach great power, you won't get it unless you have good intentions.  I say this because the Darkling tries to reach power by claiming that he wants to destroy the Fold (very big, bad place), but instead he wants to expand it to take out his enemies so he can control everyone.  Alina resists his power though, refusing him the pleasure of having power over everyone, so the Darkling never got what he wanted.

To summarize the book, Alina starts off as an orphan with her friend Mal.  They grow up together and get drafted into the army together.  But, Alina is a junior map maker and Mal is a very good tracker.  The army must travel through the fold in order to get supplies.  On their trip through the fold, they get attacked by very vicious animals called volcra, where Alina discovers that she has a power unlike any other Grisha, who are humans with supernatural powers, the Darkling being the most powerful, and she gets taken into the Grisha world.  She trains with many teachers to learn how to fight and also control her power, while the Darkling tries to get her onto his side.  Convincing her that he wants to destroy the Fold, Alina works even harder to master her power.  The Darkling claims that an amplifier, which is something that can amplify a Grisha's power, would help her.  So, he sends a tracking group from the army to search for it.  Once they get close to finding it, Baghra, who is the teacher that helped Alina master her power, warns her that the Darkling has no good intentions, and seeks ultimate power over everyone.  She gives Alina supplies, and helps her run away that night.  She runs, and almost gets caught twice.  When she was hiding the second time, Mal finds her.  He starts to take care of her while trying to find what the Darkling wants Alina's amplifier to be.  They find what the Darkling wanted , but the Darkling gets his hands on it as well, and gives it to Alina, where he can start to control her.  The Darkling takes her to the Fold to attempt to expand it, where Alina overcomes the Darkling's power and she saves Mals life.  They both escape form the Fold and go into hiding in a forest near a town.  In the chapter titled After, it shows that Mal and Alina make it onto a ship, going to the other side of the sea. It says that there where many different rumors that they heard claiming that Apparat, who was like a priest, had disappeared, foreign troops were surrounding their borders, and the 1st and 2nd armies where threatening to go to war with each other.  They also heard that the sun summoner, who is Alina, was dead.  The book ends with the line " They are orphans again, with no true home but each other and whatever life they can make together on the other side of the sea." (Bardugo, 356).