Cori's Reviews > Shadows

Ho-ho-holy-freaking-moly.

I'm going to keep this pretty short and sweet since this is the middle child of the trilogy (poor middle child- I do notice you and value you equally). Extensive review to come with the third installment. I LOVED this book for all the same reasons I loved the first one. This was creepy, delightful, and gory-as-Sweeney-Todd-sans-opera-singing. How does Ilsa Bick DO IT? How does she combine so many weird elements that could make up their own saga and blend it into this beautiful gumbo that makes sense and is actually appealing? I'm going to say it, guys. I'm going to say it. I think I have an author crush. Have you READ this woman's bio? Reeeead it. When I was reading "Ashes" I kept thinking, "This woman writes without any hesitancy." At times, the reader can pick up on an author's hesitancy as they write. They focus heavily on the story and characters and might throw in a sentence or info-dump paragraph that shows they did some research on the topic. This hasn't happened yet in this trilogy. She casually drops "myopia" in a sentence and keeps on going. I'm a nurse. I'm a psychiatric nurse. I dig it. The only downside to this is I feel like the kids sometimes know a little more than they should for their age, but it's forgivable. She does a great job of giving a backdrop that explains their knowledge source.

Also, the setting being the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is interesting. I felt like this book took a lot more advantage of the location than the last one did.

My one complaint: I had a hard time keeping track of all the different characters. It was cumbersome. My saving grace was that I JUST read "Ashes" so I was able to recall most of the characters. I know that wouldn't have been the case otherwise and, even after only a few weeks between the two, I struggled a bit to keep all the POVs separate. And they just weren't unique enough to stand out on their own. Chris blended with Tom who blended with etc. It was enough of an issue that I IMMEDIATELY put the last book in the trilogy on hold at the library. I was concerned enough about getting lost with any break worth mentioning between reading the two. That's my only gripe.

I'd rate this an R- unapologetic gore, some cursing, violence, blood, did I mention gore?...