Shadows

"What a gorefest. I am fairly certain that <i>Shadows</i> is <i>the</i> goriest book I’ve ever read in my life. And that’s including that one werewolf book I reviewed a few years ago that sticks in my mind for its inability to stop talking about brain-eating. That aside, I can’t quite decide how I felt about this book.<br/><br/><i>Ashes</i> was told entirely from Alex’s point of view. Many story threads interweave to make up the final braid of <i>Shadows</i>, which creates a very turbulent, stop-go pace. Most chapters end at a high point in the stakes and action. More often than not, when you turn the page, you are unceremoniously dropped into another place and character’s experience. Some of the points of view are from what I considered to be minor characters. The jumping around is enough to give the reader whiplash. Sometimes, by the time you get back to the characters you were reading about previously, you’ve forgotten where you left off with them, and what has happened since. This effect is exaggerated if you are unable or unwilling to do marathon reading sessions.<br/><br/>On the one hand, Bick does a great job of intertwining a rather intricate and varied story. By the time all is said and done, you’ve read a book with many things happening in a lot of different places, roughly at the same time, which finally connected to the other loose threads at some point. However, when you step back and think about it, what happened, <i>really</i>? Honestly, the time course of <i>Shadows</i> is relatively short. It only seemed like a lot was going on because the story was told from so many points of view. I felt like my satisfaction was greater with <i>Ashes</i>, told from only Alex’s point of view. <br/><br/>I suppose that there are other factors that made me like <i>Ashes</i> much more, however. It felt much more like a survival story than a straight-up horror story. This big thing happened, and we didn’t know why or what really happened, or why some people just came back wrong from it. I liked seeing that part of the story unfold. Once Alex got to Rule, some of the appeal wore off for me, but the very end was strong and left me with high hopes for the sequel. Which didn’t really pan out.<br/><br/>Speaking of the end of <i>Ashes</i>, unless you read the book in the last month or less, I suggest looking up the author’s blog post <a href="http://www.ilsajbick.com/?page_id=1967">“So You Read Ashes a Year Ago,”</a> because <i>Shadows</i> offers approximately zero recap. If you don’t remember every person that Alex met along her journey, you’ll be even more confused by the plethora of points of view.<br/><br/>Overall, <i>Shadows</i> made for a very creepy, well-written, get-under-your-skin-and-stay-there kind of horror novel. If you can’t stand to read the gory bits, you might as well look for a different book. Although I didn’t like it nearly as much as <i>Ashes</i>, I will finish the series, because I’m curious to see how things will go in the end.<br/>"

"The trilogy that started my dystopian obsession! A must read "

"I can’t decide it’s all my favorite "