Shadows

by Robin McKinley

A compelling and inventive novel set in a world where science and magic are at odds, by Robin McKinley, the Newbery-winning author of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword , as well as the classic titles Beauty , Chalice , Spindle’s End, Pegasus and Sunshine
 
Maggie knows something’s off about Val, her mom’s new husband. Val is from Oldworld, where they still use magic, and he won’t have any tech in his office-shed behind the house. But—more importantly—what are the huge, horrible, jagged, jumpy shadows following him around? Magic is illegal in Newworld, which is all about science. The magic-carrying gene was disabled two generations ago, back when Maggie’s great-grandmother was a notable magician. But that was a long time ago.
 
Then Maggie meets Casimir, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. He’s from Oldworld too—and he’s heard of Maggie’s stepfather, and has a guess about Val’s shadows. Maggie doesn’t want to know . . . until earth-shattering events force her to depend on Val and his shadows. And perhaps on her own heritage.
 
In this dangerously unstable world, neither science nor magic has the necessary answers, but a truce between them is impossible. And although the two are supposed to be incompatible, Maggie’s discovering the world will need both to survive.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Magic, Science Fiction, Paranormal

356 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2013

About the author

Born in her mother's hometown of Warren, Ohio, Robin McKinley grew up an only child with a father in the United States Navy. She moved around frequently as a child and read copiously; she credits this background with the inspiration for her stories.

Her passion for reading was one of the most constant things in her childhood, so she began to remember events, places, and time periods by what books she read where. For example, she read Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book for the first time in California; The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time in New York; The Lord of the Rings for the first time in Japan; The Once and Future King for the first time in Maine. She still uses books to keep track of her life.

McKinley attended Gould Academy, a preparatory school in Bethel, Maine, and Dickinson College in 1970-1972. In 1975, she was graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College. In 1978, her first novel, Beauty, was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to, and she began her writing career, at age 26. At the time she was living in Brunswick, Maine. Since then she has lived in Boston, on a horse farm in Eastern Massachusetts, in New York City, in Blue Hill, Maine, and now in Hampshire, England, with her husband Peter Dickinson (also a writer, and with whom she co-wrote Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits in 2001) and two lurchers (crossbred sighthounds).

Over the years she has worked as an editor and transcriber (1972-73), research assistant (1976-77), bookstore clerk (1978), teacher and counselor (1978-79), editorial assistant (1979-81), barn manager (1981-82), free-lance editor (1982-85), and full-time writer. Other than writing and reading books, she divides her time mainly between walking her "hellhounds," gardening, cooking, playing the piano, homeopathy, change ringing, and keeping her blog.

Reviews

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Robin McKinley's books have gotten more difficult to read over the years. Beauty, The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown are all fairly straightforward, charming fantasies. I don't think it's a coincidence that those early McKinley novels are my favorites. As time went on, incomprehensible and often nightmarish scenes started showing up in her books (Sunshine, Deerskin, Spindle's End) although overall I still liked them pretty well. More recently she has written a few that are so off-beat they left me completely cold (Dragonhaven and, to a lesser extent, Chalice). And don't even get me started on the unfinished Pegasus.

Shadows definitely has some issues. It has a lot of made-up slang: dreeping, physwiz, cobeys, etc. hit you from the very first page. I understand why unknown slang makes sense in a SF/fantasy novel, but I just don't much like reading it, especially if the words are never explained, and most of them aren't; you have to glean your understanding from the context.

Shadows also dumps you in a strange alternative or parallel version of our world without a lot of exposition. America is Newworld, Europe is Oldworld, Japan is still Japan, but there are other countries you've never heard of, like Ukovia and Orzaskan. This world has some people with magical abilities, and frequently occurring events called cobeys--cohesion breaks--whatever those are. They're clearly dangerous in some vague way, but again, are they ever really explained? No. (As far as I can tell, they're a rip in the fabric of the universe that can swallow you into nothingness.) Also, there are small silvery things called silverbugs that are signs of a cobey coming. What are silverbugs? Why do they show up? What are these shadow things anyway? Who knows?? Way too much is left unexplained in this book. Info-dumping often gets a bad rap, but just a little more of it would have been appreciated here.

Shadows is written in first person narrative form, with a 17 year old girl, Maggie, telling the entire story from her point of view. Using a teenage narrator didn't work well in Dragonhaven and doesn't work all that well for me here. Sometimes Maggie acts too young and other times too old. The book spends too long at the front end with Maggie freaking out over her new stepfather and his many creepy shadows. And the ending of Shadows leaves you hanging on several issues. It's not quite a cliffhanger, but this is a pretty seriously unresolved plot.

So with all of this griping, why am I still giving this book a 3.5 star rating? Well, McKinley has a marvelous imagination and a way with words, and you do see that here. Origami has mystical, magical properties, and a much-hated algebra book, after Maggie uses it for magical purposes, promptly develops its own magic, including an almost dog-like devotion to following Maggie around. Like almost every other McKinley book, there are some wonderful animal characters (lots of them in Shadows; Maggie works in an animal shelter) who are charming, funny and very appealing. One of my favorite animal characters from the shelter was Majid, a Maine coon cat. Maine coon cats are large:



. . . and Majid is no exception.

Majid, aside from being huge, is gorgeous--whorls of brown and mahogany with a little white on his chest and paws--and people keep trying to adopt him because he's so spectacular to look at, and can be very charming when he's in the mood. The mood never lasts long. He always comes back in a week or two having eaten the mailman or given the neighbors' Rottweiler a nervous breakdown.

Majid has a small but key role in the events of the story.

Once I got used to the terminology and Maggie’s voice—which took a while, I admit—I was able to immerse myself in this story and really enjoyed it.

There was an unexpected twist to the love story that I truly appreciated: Maggie meets an incredibly handsome guy, Casimir, and is immediately infatuated. A couple of days later, quite suddenly, a longtime guy friend, Takahiro or "Taks," makes a move on her and Maggie reciprocates. Then, amazingly, instead of creating a love triangle and teasing both guys along for half the book, Maggie--with just a little regret for what might have been—immediately lets Casimir go and focuses on her relationship with Takahiro. I think I increased the rating of this book by a star just for that plot development.

The world of Shadows is a bit like the world in Sunshine, except (as far as I can tell) no vampires--though there is a werewolf. I wouldn't recommend Shadows for anyone who's not already a fantasy reader; it’s a little tough slogging through the first part. (Go read The Blue Sword or The Hero and the Crown instead. Seriously.) But if you like McKinley's earlier fantasies, I think there's enough good in Shadows to make it worth your time, if you can be patient with its shortcomings.

[Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my youth, I have read and loved all of Robin McKinley's fantasies. Therefore, it is with a considerable amount of disappointment that I have to admit that I wish she had stuck to that genre after reading this book. Shadows provided me with little enjoyment. This could be considered fantasy, but it is a convoluted sort of fantasy that makes little or no sense. The world building is confusing. The lingo is nonsensical. I desperately wished for a glossary, footnotes, anything to help me with the piss-poor pseudo-dystopian/semi-coherent alternate universe, whatever this book is.

There is magic within this book, but the experience of reading this book is not magical. It is a rambling stream of consciousness with a mess of an insta-love and an insinuated love triangle, narrated by a tedious, unlikeable, annoying teenaged girl.

The summary is deceptively simple, but the execution of it is convoluted, confounding. Maggie lives in Newworld with her widowed mother and younger brother, Ran. It is a pretty ordinary existence, she goes to high school and hangs out with her best friends, Taks and Jill, she volunteers at the local pet shelter---until a major disturbance comes into her life in the form of a deceptively ordinary stepfather. Maggie hates her stepfather, Val, but her hatred goes beyond the usually reasons; Val is creepy. There are shadows surrounding him.

I was watching the shadows on the wall behind Val’s chair. They were too lively and there were way too many of them. One or another of them always seemed about to turn into something I could recognize—a Komodo dragon or an alligator or a ninety-tentacled space alien.

They snake around him, they surround him, they're twisty, tentacled, sinister shadow creatures. And only Maggie can see them. Maggie tries to hide her disgust and hatred of Val, for her mother's sake, she even grits her teeth and doesn't speak a word about it (really, who would believe her?). Until one day, the shadows get to be more than she can handle. Maggie snaps.

I’d had it. I’d had it.
I could have done one of two things. I could have screamed, run back out the front door and never come back. I could have become the Phantom of the Shelter, only coming out at night to clean kennels. Or I could get so furious I forgot to be frightened, thinking this monster, this magic user, living in my house, married to my mom—and run forward, straight at the snake-shadow thing, and screamed at Val.
I chose the second.
“What the gods’ holy engines is it with you?” I shouted. “I’m sick of your stupid horrible shadows crawling around! What are they! What are you? What are you doing out there in the shed? What are you? What are you doing here?”

Who is Val? What is he? Who is Casimir, the strange, beautiful foreign boy who is oddly fascinated by Maggie? What does Maggie's heritage got to do with all this forbidden magic?

The setting: The world building is alternately overwhelming, and utterly lacking. There are so many terms thrown at us. There are new lingos; dreeping, flastic, bugsuck, whizztizz. And then there are the foreign terms. Mgdada, chabaled, nazok, gruuaa, guldagi.

There is Oldworld, Newworld, Southworld, Midworld, Farworld, with few explanations for their existence. Oh, and then there's Japan and England and Scotland and other countries of the world, which still exists, for some fucking reason and I'm not quite sure where they fit into the scheme of Oldworld, Newworld, etc.

There is NIDL. There are silverbugs, which are supposed to be avoided at all cost, but it is never entirely explained as to what the fuck they are and particularly why they're so dangerous.

There is gene-chopping to cut out the magical genes within a family without a compelling reason as to why magic is forbidden, as to why it is so utterly condemned and dangerous. I never got a clear sense of any sort of rhyme or reason for anything that goes on in this spastic fantasy/sci-fi crossbred world. There is the watchguard. There is neutralization. There is physwiz. There is NIDL. There the overwatch. There are countries like Ukovia, Orzastan. Lest you get the sense that this is indeed a magical world, it is not. Newworld is bland. Boring. Mechanical. There is nothing compelling about the world in which this book is set. I really could have used a glossary, because this book's narrator does a piss poor job of explaining what the actual fuck is going on.

The plot: I hate to sound like a broken record here, but it cannot be helped. Confusing is the word of the day. The plot and the world building is the worst part of this book. This book's plot is so utterly disjointed. The summary made the plot compelling, it is not. The only thing it does well is in the depiction of the horror and tension that builds up while Maggie tries to come to terms with the shadows surrounding her stepfather. Everything else is so dull. It is a story about a girl who deals with shadows and the potential presence of forbidden magic in her life, while dealing with an insta-love, and a potential love triangle for her newly hot best friend. There's some stuff about going on a rescue mission, about discovering one's heritage, but honestly, the book completely lost me far before that point.

The narrative: First person POV, the prose is more or less stream-of-consciousness, and coming from an angry, sullen, somewhat rebellious 17 year old girl, it is really fucking annoying at times. Take this paragraph, from the first chapter of the book:

He was short and hairy and didn’t know how to wear Newworld clothes and spoke with a funny accent and used a lot of really dreeping words that nobody in Newworld had used in two hundred years. Have you ever heard anyone say “ablutions?” I didn’t think so. He looked like the kind of creepazoid you’d cross the street to avoid walking past too close to. And this guy who looks like a homeless crazydumb who’s about to start shouting about the evil magician who planted electrodes in his brain stands there smiling gently at my mother...and she laughs and puts her arm through his because she loves him. Uggh.

Maggie's narration is erratic. She is not entirely focused. She goes off her train of thought often, she goes off on tangents, and I could barely tolerate her as a narrator. I felt sympathy for her towards the beginning of the story, but Maggie grated on my nerves so much that she becomes almost intolerable throughout the story.

She's also got this little habit of dropping Japanese phrases into her narration. Shimatta. Kuso. Baka. Sumimasen. Domo arigato gozaimasu. Maggie's usage of random Japanese words in her everyday vocabulary stemmed from her grade-school self's need to annoy the fuck out of her quiet half-Japanese best friend, Taks; unfortunately, that habit lasted far beyond her childhood, to continue on the tradition of annoying others, namely, readers such as myself.

The characters: Underwhelming. Maggie is a ball of energy, she is erratic, she almost feels spastic at times, but I didn't get much personality out of her besides that. The rest of the characters are unremarkable, inoffensive, but completely tedious.

The romance: Why? WHY?! I know the romance is a broken record complaint from me, but there really was no point at all to the romance in this story. It turned Maggie from an ordinary girl into a special snowflake when the mysterious, starkly foreign boy falls in love with her and her special snowflakeness. It was so completely out of nowhere, it added nothing to the already uncompelling plot besides to further aggravate my nerves.

I always thought that “my heart turned over” was just a phrase.
And then he smiled. At me. At me.
My heart turned over.
He wasn’t too pretty. Trust me. He was not too pretty. Oh, did I mention the dimple? He had a dimple in one cheek. Oh. Gods. Oh. Gods.

And then the stupid love triangle thing with the best friend who got hot overnight. So predictable.

I had way, way too much to think about...and Casimir’s face started drifting across my mind’s eye and that made my heart beat even faster than thinking about Val’s shadows did.
Funny, I thought vaguely, that Takahiro’s face appeared a few times too. Takahiro was my friend, even if he was annoying a lot of the time, but he was too tall and too solemn to crush on.

Right. Then stop fantasizing about his naked ass.

Despite its claims, there is nothing that feels magical, nothing fantastic about reading this book. Please read one of Robin McKinley's older works; they are superior to this terrible novel.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

*This is an ARC review.
Any excerpts or quotes are taken from an unfinished copy
and are therefore subject to change before the final print*

Opening Line

This story starts out like something out of a fairy tale: I hated my stepfather.

My Take On It

Guys, I have read a lot of books, and I have a lot of authors I love, but there is one author I am particularly fangirly/ borderline obsessive about: Robin McKinley. It was about three or four years ago that I read my first McKinley book, Sunshine, a urban fantasy/ vampire story set in an alternate universe. You can read my gushy review of that book HERE.

From page one of Sunshine I was SMITTEN. The world building and crafting of characters blew me away. The only thing that KILLED me was that Sunshine is a standalone. McKinley isn't fond of writing sequels, and it is WELL DOCUMENTED that Sunshine shall never have one. What's a devoted fan to do? Stalk the author's website and eagerly anticipate upcoming releases, of course. So I do. A year or so back I found a snippet on McKinley's blog about a story in the works which would eventually become Shadows. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to get an advance readers copy of Shadows and IMMEDIATELY set about to read it. What I loved about the synopsis was it ALMOST sounded like the same world Sunshine was set in: an alternate universe filled with magic handlers and supernatural beings and occurrences. I spent a couple of days with Shadows and my final verdict? Loved it, or course. Is it the same world as Sunshine? No. But there are some striking similarities. And most important, the traits that McKinley's writing is best known for: magnificent world building; amazing, well rounded, fully fleshed characters that leap off the page; unexpected romance that will make you catch your breath and surprises at each and every turn are all found within Shadows as well.

So, Shadows. Let's meet our narrator: Margaret Alistrina, or Maggie, your everyday high schooler living in Newworld. And by the way, the names of many of the characters in this book are wonderfully strange and unusual, which just adds to the book's magical feel. Here is what you need to know about Maggie: she is just your normal girl. She lives with her mom, younger brother, and dog Mongo. When first we meet Maggie she's having some trouble adjusting to her new home life. Her father died in an accident when Maggie was just a kid, and her mother has recently remarried and Maggie is not so crazy about her new stepfather.

Now before you write off Maggie as being a spoiled brat there's more. In addition to Val being hopelessly foreign and strange, he hails from Oldworld after all, there is something else. Surrounding Val are a host of slithering, wiggly shadowy beings that only Maggie can see. Maggie doesn't understand what these shadows are, or why they cling to Val, or why she is the only one who can see them, but as Val becomes more involved in her family's life, her unease grows. But Maggie will soon discover there is a reason why she can see Val's shadows, and that she is far from alone in possessing some rather strange abilities.

You should also know that Maggie is an animal lover. In fact, Maggie's dog Mondo, as well as bunch of other critters from the animal shelter where Maggie works, become CENTRAL to this story. Me, being the McKinley stalker that I am, know that this is probably not accidental. I think McKinley talks more about her beloved dogs on her blog than anything else. It makes perfect sense that animals would play such a big role in her books, and they certainly do in Shadows.

As Shadows unfolds, McKinley's incredible world building skills begin to kick in. I mentioned in my review of Sunshine, that McKinley likes to employ what I call a "rambling-yet-relevant" narrative. What I mean by that is you won't find instances of info dumping in McKinley's books, instead she slowly eases the reader into whatever world she is crafting. And when her characters seem to veer off topic onto some some tangent, you can REST ASSURED that whatever is being relayed to the reader will 1) come up again later in the story or 2) help to further develop the world or the characters in the story.

The world building starts out small, usually by adding in some odd sounding words such as "dreeping" or "loopheads" or phrases such as "Gods Holy Engines!" that seemingly don't mean anything but gradually develop into a language all it's own, and a language that the reader begins to recognize. Then McKinley starts giving tidbits of backstory. Over time we the reader learn what cobey's and silverbugs are in the world of Shadows. We learn the differences between Newworld and Oldworld, Farworld and Southworld. We learn about the magic handlers that no longer exist in Newworld, bred out of the population over time, but are still an integral part of Oldworld and the people that live there. We also learn about why the disappearance of magic in Newworld might be a big problem when it comes to cobey outbreaks, also known as cohesion breaks or gaps in reality. Sound a bit like science fiction? I think so too, and I love some science fiction! But but don't worry non sci fi lovers, McKinley treads lightly and it never gets too in depth or high brow.

And this type of storytelling is what I LOVE about Robin McKinley's books. The creation of all these fantastic elements that pool together to build this richly layered world that feels like a fantasy world yet still seems grounded in reality. As with Sunshine, the world that McKinley imagines in Shadows is a web of stories within stories that feel like they could spin off in new directions to create even more wonderful tales. There aren't many authors that I have read that have the ability to do this with their writing.

As far as other characters go you will meet some great ones in addition to Maggie, her mom, her brother Ran, Val and her faithful dog, Mondo. There's Jill and Takahiro, Maggie's best friends. There is a definite Asian feel and flair to this book, Maggie and her friend Jill often use Japanese words when talking to their friend Takahiro, and Maggie's love of origami really comes into play in a most unusual way later on in the book. There's Maggie's boss Clare at the shelter and there's Casimir, the beautiful boy from Oldworld who has a definite interest in Maggie. While Maggie as the protagonist is the most fleshed out of the cast, McKinley doesn't skimp on the others. I had a strong feel for each by book's end. And there is another group of characters that I can't really talk about (for fear of spoiling) but let me say they turned out to be some of the most endearing and cool characters of the entire bunch. HIX, I am thinking of YOU:) Ok, zipping my lips.

Obviously, for me the coolest thing about McKinley's books and Shadows in particular, is the creation of this complex fantasy world that somehow feels so very real. But there is more to love about Shadows, namely a really awesome and unexpected romance. I won't spoil anything here but I have to give a HUGE shout out to Robin McKinley for TOTALLY treading off the beaten, and predictable YA, path when it comes to romance. McKinley's books always have great surprises in them. In each of those I have read there have been moments where the plot twists in an unforeseen way that just makes me want to whoop and cheer. True to form, this happens several times in Shadows, my favorite being with the romance storyline. Let's just say that no, I didn't see it coming and by it I mean ANY of it. Yes, I'm being very, very vague here, but I can't NOT mention this part of the book, because it was just SO BLOODY WELL PLAYED. Read Shadows then email me so we can talk it all over. Please. I'm dying to discuss this with somebody:)

So, did I have any gripes about Shadows?

Well, the story did feel a bit bottom heavy. Like many of McKinley's books, it takes a little while to get going. McKinley likes to set the stage, build that world and those characters up, and as a result most of the action is Shadows takes place at the end. I think sometimes this slow build up is where McKinley loses some readers but ultimately it doesn't bother me so much. The writing, the world building, the character development is so impressive that I don't mind the story's balance being a little off. It's worth it.

And like Sunshine, I fear that Shadows, a book with so much potential, so many different stories within stories that could spin off into more books, will most likely not have a sequel. But I know that McKinley will sometimes return to a world she has created, like she did in her Damar books and like she promises to one day do with Sunshine, so I hope that one day she might return to the world she crafted in Shadows as well. I for one cannot seem to get enough of the fantastic alternate worlds that McKinley writes, worlds where magic and superstition and science and technology are often at odds, and where so many characters are not quite as they seem.

But those gripes aside, I loved reading Shadows. I can't say that it is my favorite McKinley book, that title still goes to Sunshine, but I am just so thrilled to be reading more by this author. If you are a fan of Sunshine like me then I think you'll enjoy Shadows too. There are some striking similarities between the two books. And if you are a fan of Catherine Fisher's Incarceron, Sapphique, or The Obsidian Mirror, or Cat Hellisen's When the Sea is Rising Red, you should give Shadows a try. The atmospheric world's that inhabit those books are a lot like McKinley's world in Shadows. And while I haven't read Diana Wynne Jones Howl's Moving Castle I have heard that there are similarities between Shadows and that book too. In fact, McKinley dedicated Shadows to Jones.

My final thoughts: Robin McKinley fans, go ahead and pre-order this one. Fans of fantastic world building and inventive, original storylines need to take notice too. Shadows does not disappoint.

[Alienor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like it. But... well, no.

- McKinley writes about animals and 'critters' very well, but I feel she's getting a little lazy in the process. Whatever happens, throw in some dogs, cats, and other creatures and you'll be protected.

- the narrator is an origami aficionada, and accordingly it felt the narrative was getting folded on itself A LOT, a bunch of rambling non sequiturs that served to 'introduce' the world setting and to give some backstory... but most of it was tedious, badly timed, confusing and didn't really explain anything at all. I think I'm reaching the end of my rope with McKinley not explaining anything (with a heroine who is just as confused as the reader but somehow saves the day) and expecting us to go along for the ride. At some point there has to be some accountability on the writer's side.

- Also, the narrative was all very teenagespeak at first (as in Sunshine), which I find annoying, but that completely went away afterwards.

- ok, from the mother's point of view; you are married to a man your daughter fears and hates (until 24h ago). He gets abducted by the army. You let your 17year old daughter and 3 similarly aged friends go rescue him/break him out of an army compound...???? While you RUN AWAY??? And she's doing this for YOU, because YOU love him??? And you can LIVE with YOUURSELF afterward???!!!

- enough enough enough already with the love triangles!!! You did it very well in the Hero and the Sword (see my review), it opened unthought worlds for me... But it's really getting repetitive for no reason...

- magic is all very mysteriiiiious (why, when most of the world is obviously still using it?), but throwing in a bunch of meaningless words from 'Oldworld' languages (gruua, mgdaga etc) is just confusing, and again, what's the point if you're not going to explain them??? It's just 'twee', like using Japanese words just 'cause. So magic is hated, some of the foreigners know stuff - but not really - and then everyone is coming out of their broom closet. I'm sorry, but who's the enemy? The 'cobeys'? (That word comes up ALL the time and is only explained 2/3 into the book). The 'magic' disturbances? The army? The politics? The stepfather? What the hell is going on and which way should we be facing???

Goddamit, there were some nice characters in there, but I felt we were all wandering around in fog...!!

[Sharon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I never in a million years would have ever thought I'd rate a McKinley novel with only one star. But good grief, Shadows was a total trainwreck.

It seems like more and more, McKinley is writing "origin story" type novels that conclude when the real adventure is actually starting. That trope has worked well for her in the past, as with Sunshine, primarily because of her knack for writing really interesting, sympathetic, 3-dimensional characters. Did I want The Further Adventures of Sunshine and Her Pal, Con at the end of Sunshine? Sure. But I was also really satisfied with the story that had been told, because it drew a convincing and complete narrative arc. The other theme that shows up a lot in McKinley's work is that it's not magic that makes her main characters special, even though most of her novels feature protagonists with some kind of Super Speshul Ability. For example, what makes Rosie in Spindle's End wonderful is not so much her princess pedigree or her ability to talk to animals, but rather her kindness, stubbornness, and bravery. Sunshine is as marked by her passion for feeding people as her affinity for sunlight and transmuting powers.

What was really missing in Shadows was the likeable protagonist who was interesting for something other than her newly discovered Super Speshul Powers. Maggie was fairly bland as a character and narrator, and I felt like there was a lot of telling rather than showing in terms of why we ought to care for her/why her friends care for her. The initial antipathy toward Val was clunky and didn't do much to highlight Maggie's decision-making process. (Your adored mother falls in love with a guy with shadows crawling all over him and you don't say anything to her? Sure.) And the book didn't really have the kind of plot that makes up for a not-so-great protagonist. Again, it felt like McKinley ended the book right as they were about to get interesting (on both a narrative and ethical level). Describing action is also not one of McKinley's strong points -- there was a lot of "and then stuff happened, but I can't really describe how or why" going on in the final third of the book, which was pretty frustrating. Also, Maggie ends up unconscious for part of the ending and so we get a lot of Info Dump for the final scene. Not great.

The thing that really tipped me over the edge, though, was the novel's (and Maggie's) treatment of one of its few characters of color, Takahiro. Takahiro, or "Taks," is Maggie's half-Japanese childhood friend, though you kind of have to wonder why he would be friends with her when she self-admittedly started appropriating Japanese phrases "to annoy him" early in their so-called friendship. He basically ends up being Maggie's mascot for why she's oh-so-unique (she does origami! and uses a handful of Japanese words! UGH), and the novel doesn't offer us much about Taks beyond the usual tired/offensive stereotypes about him being exotic, mysterious, and reserved. (Also, McKinley has him slip into non-standard English when he gets stressed, but it's not the kind of non-standard English that an East Asian language speaker would actually use. The research for this novel felt really lazy or non-existent [there was also a bad algebra equation that almost broke my brain until I told myself that she probably didn't intend for it to be so unsolvable].) It's really incredible to me that authors are still writing poc characters like this in 2013, particularly given the many scandals/conversations in YA/fantasy in the last ten years about this very issue.

[Andrea]

"Shadows" is McKinley channelling Diana Wynne Jones, a fact which is foregrounded by the book's dedication.  The focus on family, the combination of a magical and a technological world, and the cascading chaos of the story's climax all bring Jones' work strongly to mind. There's some particular similarities to Witch Week.
 
The thrust of the story is dystopian - while it starts out seeming to be about a problematic step-father, it segues into a focus on the society (although this relies a little on the protagonist having paid very little attention to that society and tuning out in school a great deal).
 
I started out slow with the book, but settled into it around a third of the way in, when the action picked up, and stayed up way too late reading it.  An enjoyable read (though a little overwhelming, with a great deal of teen-speak, alt-world slang, Japanese and "Old World" terms spilling over the pages).

I was rather unimpressed by Maggie's mother, who brings home a man and finds that her obedient, caring daughter behaves in a way which suggests that she's consistently and completely terrified by him. And puts it down to "teenagers hate step dads". And one day her daughter _screams_ while alone with step dad - and she never actually asks her daughter's version of events, just accepts step dad's. And who had information which would have made a big difference to daughter's coping, and doesn't mention it. Tch.

[Ksenia (vaenn) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Люблю я Робін Мак-Кінлі, але нерівномірно. Sunshine обожнюю, нехай воно й доволі дивакувате, до ретелінгів ставлюся з повагою, а от з "Тінями" трохи складніше. Концептуально - круто, а на рівні виконання уже гірше.

Shadows - це доволі стандартний роман виховання. Старшокласницю Меггі все ще не відпустила смерть батька, а мати виходить заміж вдруге і щось з тим чуваком категорично не те, але тут ще й власні проблеми тиснуть, зокрема й любовно-трикутні – все, як завжди. Та кілька моментів все ж таки рятують від безодні стартової банальності. Доволі адекватна головна героїня. Приємно задекорована порція сімейних цінностей. Увага до деталей (в ролях найцікавіших деталей – страшенно привітний собака, кілька монструозних автівок і живий підручник з алгебри). Але головне – підхід до світобудови.

“Тіні” є доволі рідкісним звірятком – це наукове фентезі. Власне, весь сюжет крутиться навколо того, що у віддалено схожому на наш світі вирішили по-різному боротися із енергетичними виливами з паралельних всесвітів. Десь класично – магією. А в Новосвіті, де й живе родина Меггі – суто методами науково-технічного прогресу. Причому, ані чарівники, ані науковці толком не розуміють, як воно працює, але до підходів конкурентів всі ставляться підозріло. От у Новосвіті, скажімо, вирішили ті непередбачувані чари повністю забанити, а носіям неправильної спадковості – проблемний ген просто вирізати. Думаєте, спрацювало? Ага, щяз, а сюжет тоді з чого ліпити! І все було б прекрасно, якби письменниця цей сюжет подавала рівномірніше, бо тут у нас дууууже повільно про побутові реалії світу, де магія була та й спливла, та складнощі стосунків з вітчимом, а тут – бац-бац, бігом-бігом, три-чотири розділу екшену й книжка скінчилась.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should start with a disclaimer, I was predisposed to like this book. I adore Robin McKinley, I’ve read Rose Daughter something like fourteen times, it was my go-to comfort read when I was in high school. That said, Shadows was fantastic all over the place. It’s full of patented Robin McKinley magic: extended adoptive family units, a band of (for the most part) animal companions and a lovely, satisfying romance. And magic, did I mention magic? Lots and lots of magic.



Head on over to Cuddlebuggery to check out the rest of the review.

[Jessica Lewenda]

WHAT? New Robin McKinley book? Oh gosh, I am so excite.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maggie lives in a country that used gene therapy to cut magic out of its citizens, and destroys any instance of the fantastical on sight. But her new step-dad is surrounded by writhing shadows that not everyone can see, her best friend turns into a dog, and Maggie has the ability to heal rips in reality. So clearly the gene therapy isn't perfect.

McKinley wrote some of my very favorite books of all time ( Beauty, Sunshine...) but I could barely bring myself to read this. Every page annoyed me. The story is told from Maggie's rambling stream of consciousness type pov, and she's never met an unnecessary tangent or repetition of an info dump that she didn't like. Halfway in, I actively hated Maggie (shut up shut UP about your stupid algebra textbook! stop throwing random Japanese words into every sentence! use your brain for three seconds!) and was tired of having the world repeatedly explained to me, so I gave up. It seemed like the plot was just kicking in right when I stopped reading, so perhaps the second half is more engaging.

[skein · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted this to be a sequel to Sunshine, and maybe McKinley did too -- because things would tiptoe up to that line -- and then fart on it.

Maybe I just have no patience with YA literature anymore? SAY IT ISN'T SO. Because I wanted to shake the narrator for her ninny-headed-ness, and there was a lot of OMG MAYBE HE LIKES ME OMG MAYBE, and stop wondering if you are born special or born normal because you have to do your best regardless and I am so much less interested in Lucky Genetics than I am interested in pluck and choice and change ...

... and this wasn't that. Not for me. I read forty pages and flipped through and then closed it up entirely. Back to the library you go, little book. Godspeed.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I kept hearing John Cleese in my head, "And now for something completely different!" So different! McKinley's last book, PEGASUS was a lush depiction of a magical land where the royal family are all paired up with pegasii, but it's covering up a darker deception. Here is a contemporary story of a teenage girl living in New World (America) where all magic has been stamped out. Those who care a genetic predisposition for magic have it surgically removed, and magic users are severely punished. Enter Maggie's new stepfather, who has too many shadows.

A very different story from what I expected, and a very different world and magic system from what you usually see!

[Jill · Rating 1 out of 5]

So many commas. So many hyphens.

I can’t read any more Robin McKinley books. For a long time, I’ve counted her among my favorite authors, but this was the end. To a point, her distinctive stream-of-consciousness style can be endearing and unique, atypical... but in Shadows, she’s adopted the voice of a seventeen-year-old-girl who is unable or unwilling to follow standard English grammar and simply writes the way she would talk. The breaks and digressions and teenager-jabber are very irritating to the inner ear. I really liked Sunshine and Deerskin and The Hero and the Crown and even Chalice, but I’m not putting myself through the experience of reading McKinley one more time.

McKinley's heroines tend to be girls who are on the fringe, outcasts, oddballs or weirdos, which appeals to any shy, bookish girl who can see herself in a character who just doesn't fit in. But this girl at one point hopes that her friend will invite her to origami together so that she'll have an excuse not to go to a party. Maggie is a less social Bella Swan... although, in fairness, a more useful human being. Muster your courage, step outside your door and go to the party. It won't kill you.

The author is also famous for her sentence fragments: “Jonesie was trying to get at the cans of dog food but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t succeed. And even with a Staffie’s jaws he probably wouldn’t be able to open them. Probably.” YES. PROBABLY. GOT IT. Don’t get me started on the hyphens: “She fell—well, sat—in her chair.” Maggie’s mom can’t even sit at the breakfast table to have her coffee without a grating, dissonant break in the sentence. If there was a falling quality to her sitting, there were twenty better, more graceful ways to construct this little sentence, but she went with this way.

The narrative is clogged with empty words: thing, everything, stuff, guy, or something, anyway, bad, good, probably, pretty much. They’re words a teenager would use to verbally narrate this adventure. It’s as though we’re someone she’s meeting a few days after the story happens and she’s telling us (in one breath) the sequence of events. Here are some quotes that sum up the baffling reading experience:

“Now I could hear—feel—something—the crackles and frizzles and—something-going-wrong-with-the-air—as all the unbent unfolded steel-legged things made contact with whatever was in the tank.”

What in the world does that mean??

“But Jill wasn’t listening to me; she was trying to pick up what Casimir knew. Our eyes met. I could see that she was succeeding. And then… I began to pull it too, or it to pull me. It was a bit like a loop of gruuaa tugging in their insubstantial way. Maybe that’s what it was.”

AGAIN I don’t have a clear idea what this mess means. Pull WHAT?

“’Why do you think I run a hardware store?’ Arnie said. ‘It’s a good way to confuse the sweeps. You don’t think it’s all about cobeys, do you?’ ‘I—‘ I said. ‘Well, I did. But—hardware? I—er—I mean, the last few days, um animals— ’”

MAGGIE! I’m going to need you to string together a coherent sentence because I do not know what you’re talking about or what is happening and you are the narrator and that is your job.

McKinley spends an inordinate amount of time on logistics yet leaves What Is Actually Happening in ambiguity. When Maggie and Jill et al. were leaving the animal shelter with all those dogs and one cat, I knew the position of every human, animal and bag of food that had been arranged in the gigantic car, but a moment later when they’re being chased by the government and a crash into a pole is described, I didn't know at first which car hit the pole or why and I certainly didn’t understand why Maggie thought that turning down a certain street would hide them from view. Wouldn’t their pursuers just... you know... pursue them, make the same turn and then... catch them? Then there’s this gem: “I stopped. Takahiro and Jill and Casamir stopped. The rest of the dogs stopped too.” I’m so very glad that I know in what order everyone stopped. Nevermind that I’m not clear on where we are, or why the two stepdads have been captured except that the story needed a conflict three quarters of the way through, or what happened in the backstory of Newworld to get us to this magic-phobic present time. Nope. At the end of the story I was still in the dark about a lot of things, but I did know that someone went to pick up Jill’s brothers’ car from the detention center the day after they broke out the stepdads. You would think a car left behind at the scene after a colossal, magical breach of a government facility, the perpetrators of which were known to have left on foot, would be an item of enquiry. Turns out no.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here’s something I hope you know about me by now: Robin McKinley is one of my favorite authors. Ever. I’ve read everything she’s written at least twice, and some of her books I’ve reread more times than I can count. So from the first page of “Shadows,” I fell right back in with McKinley’s writing style, and even though this book came out just a couple weeks ago, it immediately felt comforting and familiar.

Of the books McKinley’s written, I think “Shadows” is most closely related in style to “Dragonhaven” and “Sunshine” in that it takes place in an equivalent to the modern word and is written in the first person. McKinley’s books are always sneakily funny, but I feel like whenever she writes in the first person, the humor is given a bit more free reign through the narrative voice. And Maggie in this book is pretty dang funny. She’s a bit snarky and sarcastic and just generally made me smile. She didn’t quite grab me as much as McKinley’s protagonists usually do, but I liked her all the same.

Can I just take a little sidebar here and give a thumbs up for the way McKinley writes about dogs? I swear the dogs in her books are as much characters as anyone else, and Mongo in this book is no exception. McKinley portrayal of him is so spot on and vivid that half the time I expected to look down and see Mongo curled up by my feet. By the time I finished “Shadows,” I was three-fourths of the way convinced that maybe I really am a dog person after all.

Here’s the other thing I want to give McKinley a high five for: she avoids a love triangle! I was seriously worried that “Shadows” was headed that direction, and although I knew that if anyone could successfully handle a love triangle it’s Robin McKinley (hello, “The Hero and the Crown” and “Sunshine”), I was still dreading a love triangle all the same. But thankfully McKinley steers the book clear of that potential emotional mess and keeps that aspect of the story fairly stress-free.

Now here’s the thing I wasn’t so crazy about. This book felt like the beginning of a series. Except, Robin McKinley (with the exception of “Pegasus”) doesn’t do series. So I was left a little confused. Because while all the small, immediate problems in the book are dealt with, the overarching issues don’t get resolved, and I felt like some of the explanation I needed was never provided (e.g., why cobeys suddenly started appearing in the first place, what was going on with the origami, what the heck was going on with that algebra book, etc.). So I fear that rather than this being a brilliant start to a series, it's actually a slightly frustrating standalone.

Overall, this book was by Robin McKinley, so duh, of course I liked it. I’m a bit confused about whether it’s supposed to be a standalone or not, but in general I had a good time. It didn’t end up being my favorite of hers, but maybe I just need to give it some time and read it again. After all, I struggled with “Chalice,” “Sunshine,” AND “The Hero and the Crown” the first time around, and now they’re some of my favorites of hers. So who knows where “Shadows” will ultimately end up.

Rating: 4 / 5

Book Light Graveyard

[Whitley Birks]

Stopped at 80(ish) pages in, so no rating, just rambling.

This book and I just didn't jive. If it was merely a bad book, I could have kept going (as many of you well know), but instead it was a...mediocre book that didn't sit with me. Nothing to get worked up about, but nothing to enjoy, either.

There were things that didn't sit with me that will for other people. The voice of the character is very young, peppered liberally with "uhg"s and "oh my gods" and whining. It's a little younger than her given age, but she is a teenager, so I guess technically it flies. It's just not what I want to read. Then there was the worldbuilding, which felt more like a veneer than an actual world. It was a 'take it and don't question it' sort of thing, not because it didn't add up, but because it was so...shallow. Little was explained, but a lot of details were thrown out, so the only way to handle it was to shrug and say "okay," and that's just not how I read. About the time I realized that the paltry few bits of info we got just added more questions than they answered, I stopped.

The only part of the shallow worldbuilding that really grinded on me was the lack of a clear distinction between magic and "science." I put science in quotes because books like these don't seem to actually know what that means; they think it's synonymous with "electricity" or "magic, but you do it with maths" or...fuck all if I know. No one seems to understand that if you can perform a set of actions, gain a measurable result, and repeat said experiment, that is science, whether you're using wands and cants or wires and knobs. Normally this is a low-level annoyance, but since one of the central themes of the book is tension between magic and "science," that needs to be clearer.

There was also the issue of the titular shadows. Apparently Maggie was raised in this land of "we only trust science" and forgot that one of the steps of the scientific process is "observe." As soon as she saw these shadows, she went "that is not supposed to be there, therefore it's not and I'm just crazy." I'm sorry, you've reached the antithesis of science. This concept could have worked anyway if said shadows had been even a little bit more ambiguous, but they're not. It's as if someone were to walk down the street and say "HOLY FUCK A DRAGON! Wait, dragons aren't real. Well, I'll just go about my business while glaring at it. Ladeeda."

Parts of the book were good, and I could certainly see how a reader with different priorities would enjoy it. But it's very much not for me.

[Alyssa Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

McKinley is one of my all-time favorite authors, so I’ll never pass up a chance to read one of her books. It’s so funny, though, because they all follow a very similar pattern. For all of her books, I’m supremely bored for the first 50 pages or so while she sets up the world and then BAM! something happens, and I can’t stop reading. Shadows was no different. I read the first few chapters wondering if I should slog through or give up and then everything turned on its head and I was in for the ride.

Shadows is set in an almost futuristic world, but one where magic very much exists. I loved the world for how it felt both familiar and “other.” It has a fun alternate-world type vibe. This story is very much a coming of age story, where Maggie’s idea of what the world is completely turns upside down as she learns more about magic, her family’s involvement with magic, and what the government is actually doing. I loved following along with her, being surprised at each new revelation and basking in each newfound magic-user and their powers. As I said, the beginning is slow, but once the plot gets going, it doesn’t stop. It’s one thing after another and it’s really hard to stop reading once you get to this point.

The characters are all absolutely fantastic, and the romance is PERFECTLY DONE! This is exactly the kind of romance I love where it doesn’t interfere with the story and I’m not irritated at how stupid the characters are for kissing in the middle of a crisis. Instead, it adds to the tension and the characters act like reasonable people with their feelings for the most part. I was all about it.

Overall, this is a pretty solid one-off fantasy. The story resolves satisfactorily while still leaving some details left to the reader’s imagination. Highly recommended for fantasy fans, especially since there’s hardly any commitment, because it’s a standalone!

Also posted on Purple People Readers.

[Tammie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't like giving up on books, but after getting well over a third of the way through Shadows I'm still not feeling it. It's not what I was expecting. Someone compared it to McKinley's book Sunshine, which I really liked, so I guess I was expecting something like that.

My mind keeps wandering and to some extent I think that's due to the writing. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad book. It's kind of different, but I'm not sure exactly what makes it feel different to me. Maybe it's the way it's written. There are made up slang words for this alternate earth, and other odd things that are referred to. I felt like I was trying to figure out what all of these things were for a third of the book before I got a good explanation. The plot is nothing original. The story is one with a parallel spirit world that keeps encroaching on ours though rifts. Part of the world uses magic to deal with it and the other part uses technology and has banned magic, and that part of the world has kind of a dystopian feel.

One thing I did find really annoying was the constant reference to her big, heavy algebra book she had to carry around. It was mentioned so much I felt beaten over the head with it! Perhaps this is a clue that it plays some important role. In the part of the book I read quite a few of its pages ended up being turned into origami for an interesting reason, but beyond that I'm not sure the algebra book has enough significance to warrant how often its mentioned. Anyway I'm moving on to something else, because I feel like I'm wasting my time. Maybe I will change my mind one day and finish it.

[Dot · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are few effortless worldbuilders out there, and Robin McKinley is one of them. Diana Wynne Jones was one, and Justine Larbelestier definitely has the knack. Even in short snippets, their stories make it abundantly clear that we're not in Kansas anymore, without clobbering the reader over the head with infodumps and gee-golly newcomer characters.

And I love that. I love that even in Larbelestier's slightly-frothy-seeming How to Ditch Your Fairy, she opened a window into a uniquely marvelous universe, and then only gave us glimpses. As a reader, it's wonderful when the delicious crust of a good universe pokes up through the tasty filling of a story in all the right places.

Anyway, McKinley seems like she's always got a good world up her sleeve, and Shadows is more of the same. Didn't quite blow me away like Sunshine did, but it's a solid story, with likeable diverse characters and some really lovely little magic bits. Plus, the boys seem real, not just charming figureheads for possible romance.

When I started reading Shadow after wading through the weak starts and handholding in other YA, McKinley quickly cemented her place as an strong author I can always turn to for an enjoyable read.

[Nannah]

Oh, boy. DNF @ 13%.
I hate not finishing books, especially when I’ve barely scratched the surface, but this one was just … so, so bad.

So far, in what I read, Maggie is an incredibly judgmental person who takes a huge disliking to her new stepfather, Val, and the strange, moving and wiggling shadows he carries around with him. She and her family live in Newworld, a world built on science that seems to have … done away with all magic from the Oldworld. I’m sure the book would expand on that (so far it involves a ton of eugenics that made me squirm), but I didn’t get that far.

Doesn’t sound that bad, right? But here’s what made me stop: the entire prose is littered with Japanese words. Maggie’s not Japanese … and the author, Robin McKinley is white. It’s not every once in a while, either, it’s “getting a D on your algebra homework for the second time and seeing the akuma of summer school looming at you. / Bugsuck. Iya. Iya na creepo.”

Supposedly the reason why there’s Japanese words throughout the entire book (I flipped through it; it’s there. It’s there till the end) is because Maggie and her best friend decided to make fun of their half-Japanese friend by appropriating words in Japanese. And now they just use Japanese words and phrases in their speech and thoughts. All the time. Someone please explain to me why he’s still friends with them?

I just … could not bear reading a whole novel about a (white? probably?) girl saying ”Baka” every couple pages. I just couldn’t.

Plus this girl keeps judging her stepdad for being an immigrant, and multiple times wishes he would just be “deported back to Orzi-whatsit” (a fictional country in the “Slavic Commonwealth”). She makes fun of his accent too, which is also a plus (/s).

I just couldn’t stand the voice, which is pretty much the heart of a novel. So I had to pass.

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maggie lives in an urban society that has outlawed the use of magic. When the fabric of the dimensions begins to collapse, and holes in reality start to appear, the government tries to use science to deal with the problem.
When Maggie meets her new stepfather for the first time, she knows he is involved in some kind of powerful magic, because he is surrounded by wisps of shadow that loom in the darkness. The shadows seem to move about on their own, wiggling and changing with every mood.

I loved the magical urban setting in this book! It's very modern, with cars and cellphones, but the history of the world includes magic, passed down by genetics through certain families. The world-building has such great depth, and it was so interesting learning all about the magic system.

Maggie is such a great main character! She is complex and emotional, and I loved seeing how she gradually discovers her own hidden powers. It was so interesting to see how she reacts when her stepfather is around, and the complexity of that new family dynamic when her mother marries this man Maggie barely knows. And I really liked the sibling dynamic between Maggie and her little brother. So cute and fun!

I loved the supporting characters! Maggie's best friends at high school and the new people she meets all have some good backstories and depth.

The plot is really exciting and I was riveted with every chapter! I finished this book in only a couple of days, because I couldn't put it down.
I was glad to see that this book isn't scary. The shadows are a bit ominous, but there is nothing actually frightening in this book.
The writing style really pulls you into the story, into Maggie's thoughts, and then you are swept along for the adventure. However there is a little bit of profanity. Not very much though, and nothing too bad. It didn't bother me very much.

[Lark of The Bookwyrm's Hoard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review originally published at The Bookwyrm's Hoard.

It often seems to me that there are two distinct Robin McKinleys. There's the lyrical, even poetic spinner of fairy tales like Spindle's End and Rose Daughter and The Blue Sword, and the more contemporary fantasy voice which produced Dragonhaven and Shadows. What links the two together is McKinley's approach to magic. In every book she writes, magic is unpredictable, incomprehensible, instinctive, and unknowable. It may follow patterns, but it doesn't follow rules. This is magic the way M. K. Jemison believes it should be: "organic... mysterious, silly, weird" and definitely "not. Supposed. To make. Sense."

Shadows throws you in at the deep end, both in terms of its magic and in terms of its world. The teenage narrator, Maggie, uses slang words and concepts like "cobeys" and "silverbugs", mostly without explaining them -- and why should she explain them, when to her they are just part of what everyone knows? Newworld, where Maggie lives, is just similar enough to our world to make sense on the surface, and just different enough to leave you off balance. That's completely appropriate, because the magic Maggie encounters has the same disorienting effect on her - literally as well as figuratively. You learn to understand Newworld the way you learned to understand the real world, or the way Maggie learns to deal with magic - through immersion and experience. That's typical of McKinley's worldbuilding, and in this case, it works brilliantly.

Maggie is a wonderful character, both like and quite unlike most of McKinley's other heroines. I love her voice, which is completely authentic; her actions, speech, and relationships are all believable and realistic in context. She's a typical teen in many ways: she goes to high school, she's not very good at math, she's thinking about college, she has a best friend, she uses slang a lot (including Japanese slang she picked up because another friend is Japanese.) In other ways she's less typical: she volunteers at the animal shelter, she befriended a young immigrant -- that Japanese friend I mentioned -- shortly after he arrived in her school, and she's essentially been a second parent to her younger brother since her father died when she was 10. Her relationships with both her brother and her mother are strong and loving, but no more perfect than Maggie herself. They bicker sometimes, as families do, but there's no questioning the bonds between them.

Maggie is a lot stronger and braver than she thinks, but when weird things begin happening and she starts seeing creepy shadows that aren't there - mostly in the vicinity of her mother's new fiance/husband, Val -- she refuses to believe or accept the evidence of her own senses, not just once but several times in a row. At the same time, she tries to minimize the time she spends around Val, so she won't have to deal with whatever-it-is she isn't seeing. I think that was the point at which McKinley really sold me on the character. Don't we all try to convince ourselves that something we've experienced didn't or couldn't really have happened, because we don't want to believe it? Of course, in the end -- well, no, in the middle -- Maggie has to accept the reality of the unusual things she sees and hears: to accept them, and learn to deal with them, and even to trust them.

It's odd that the publisher's description of the book doesn't mention Maggie's friends Jill and Takahiro (Taks), nor the animals, both mundane and magical, which play a substantial role in the book. Maggie's love for and skill with animals is critical to her development as a character as well as to the plot as a whole. I really love Mondo, her overly-energetic herding dog. He's all dog -- McKinley steers well clear of anthropomorphizing any of the mundane animals -- but he's also a lovable and goofily comic character in his own right. McKinley always writes great animals, so the importance of Mondo and the other shelter animals didn't come as much of a surprise.

Takahiro seems at first to be almost a minor character, but gradually and then rapidly increases in significance. He's brilliant, geeky, a bit of a loner, and an expert at origami. I like him very much, but I admit to being startled twice by the direction(s) in which McKinley went with him. Maggie's algebra book is another of my favorite characters -- which won't make any sense until you've read the book. Casimir, who is mentioned in the blurb, turns out to be both less and more important than he sounds; I wanted to know a little more about him. Jill is a great best friend to Maggie, and again, McKinley portrays their relationship with just the right amount of banter, mutual loyalty, and occasional disagreement.

You can guess from the blurb that there's a romance in the book, but I loved that it came with an unforeseen twist. Or two. And that it's truly a teen relationship - sweet and lovely and unexpected, with not a hint of the "forever-fated-soulmates" trope that seems so ubiquitous in recent YA fantasy.

One of the best aspects of the book is Maggie's relationship with her stepfather Val. Adolescents are usually wary of accepting a new stepparent, and Maggie is no exception. In fact, at first her disliking for Val seems like nothing more than typical teen sullenness. But I loved that McKinley didn't go in the obvious direction with this, despite initial appearances -- and that Maggie eventually has to come to terms with Val as well as with the unusual things occurring in her vicinity.

Some readers may complain that the book doesn't really end. It's true, some things remain unexplained by the end - unexplained, but not truly unfinished. I found the ending very satisfying, and if there is no sequel, Shadows can certainly stand on its own, but on the other hand, there's plenty of room for a sequel or two.

I'll be honest, Robin McKinley is one of my favorite fantasy authors. I adore her fairy tale retellings, and The Blue Sword is one of my all-time favorites. But I'm less enamored of Dragonhaven, and that had me a little nervous going in to Shadows. If it isn't evident yet from my review, I needn't have worried; I thoroughly enjoyed Shadows. It's entertaining, the characters are terrific, the worldbuilding and the magic are intriguing, and it certainly pulled me in and kept me turning the pages! More than that, McKinley's storytelling artistry shines throughout the book.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a sucker for any Robin McKinley book, and this book, as you can see by my reading time.. I really enjoyed! A bit of a different feel than other things she’s written, but I loved it all the same.

[Octobercountry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike many of the author's previous novels, this isn't set in a fantasy world, but rather an alternate reality that in some ways mirrors our own, while in others is quite different. I enjoy alternate world stories, but it took me a while to get into the spirit of this novel.

To begin with, I found the heroine rather whiny and angsty. And the constant use of slang unique to this world may be a good example of world-building, but for some reason it annoyed the heck out of me. However, I kept reading and finally, about one-third of the way through the story, it took hold of my imagination at last and I was drawn into the lives of these characters.

However.... While the book does have a satisfactory conclusion---there is no cliffhanger ending---it is also very open-ended and a lot of questions aren't answered. This is a book begging for a sequel, but I have no idea if one is in the cards or not. I do know that her sequels to Pegasus are still far from complete, so if she is going to continue with this tale I can only imagine that such a book is not scheduled for publication in the foreseeable future.

I'm a huge fan of McKinley's early work, but in recent years her novels have been hit-or-miss for me. So, on which end of the spectrum does this fall? I suppose it's more of a "hit" than a "miss"---however, my final opinion really depends on what happens next.

If she intended this to be a stand-alone, then quite frankly I'm left feeling more than a little ticked off. This is a fragment of a larger overall story, and if she didn't plan to revisit this world this book should have been condensed by at least a third of its length, and then a proper conclusion added.

Yep, I know---I have some nerve, telling an author what she should and shouldn't do! Not too demanding or overreaching of me to boss her around and tell her what she should do with her own creation, is it? Heh... But seriously, I would imagine that many editors would have had the same advice.

A lot of readers were irritated by the fact that Pegasus was published without an ending, and while she does intend to revisit that world with (last I heard) two sequels, there's still no telling how long it will be until they are released. If she's going the same route with this one, then I have no objection to waiting a while. But if this is IT, and there's no more story in the pipeline, then I am extremely unsatisfied with the way things were left.

It's quite a nice cover, though...

[David Caldwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won a copy on Goodreads Firstreads.

Magic exists.But not in Newworld. Newworld has stomped magic out. They genespliced people so they no longer have the ability to use magic. The army regularly monitors and deals with any outbreak of magic. Newworld is all about science. Let magic stay in Oldworld, Farworld, Southworlds, and the rest of the planet.

But Maggie knows there is something wrong with her new stepdad, Val. He is from Oldworld and can't seem to get Newworld customs. He won't allow tech in his office in the shed out behind the house. The worst thing is that he seems to have huge, jagged moving shadows attached to him. But when the world seems to turn upside-down, Maggie will have to turn to Val and his shadows even if it means breaking the law about dealing with magic.

Robin McKinley creates an amazing world peopled with a wonderful cast of characters. A cast not only made up of human characters, but also animals and even an algebra textbook that seems to have a mind of its own. Any author that can make a 48 year old man (me) totally empathize with a seventeen year old girl(the main character, Maggie) is simply awesome. I really enjoyed her treatment of the world and magic. She explained enough through telling the story that the reader was drawn into it without having to resort to breaking the flow of the story with huge explanantions. She treated it like you were already part of the world while neither leaving you confused nor taking you out of the story.

The science versus magic element is also very interesting. Not only do both magic and science exist, they are both natural. Newworld's attempt to stomp out magic is more like trying to bottle up a soda bottle after dropping a mentos into it. You can't deny your nature, no matter how much you might want to do so.

[Luna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Diane Wynn Jones is a lot like going to a foreign country. You have to learn the language and a bit about the culture to enjoy the beautiful things she's going to show you. Reading Robin McKinley is the same way. Reading Shadows, which was dedicated to Jones, is a slow read that is all about the journey and not the destination because you want the adventure to continue. I wasn't sure I wanted to read this despite loving every other McKinley book that I read. I held off buying it. I took my sweet time getting into it. In my past experience when it comes to things I don't immediately love I tend to end up loving them a whole lot. I, like a lot of McKinley's readers, was kind of hoping for some kind of continuation of the story we got in Sunshine. Part of me was afraid this would be set far in the future of the Sunshine world and we'd learn the horrible fate of those characters without getting the whole story, but I also know McKinley has said she has no desire at this time to continue with those particular characters or that story and I respect that. So the other part of me knew Shadows would be something wholly different. Maybe it's just because it was dedicated to Jones, but you can easily see her works influence on this story. Everything the characters touch or interact with has some potential for magic. You can't always guess where the magic is going to come from and whether it will be a force for good or bad. You want to walk around with the characters in this place just to watch and find out everything that's going to happen. In the end you're left wanting more. You want the story to continue, but all you can do is hope that the next one will take you for a new ride.

[MB (What she read) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars first read 10/10/13:
I enjoyed this one much more than Pegasus. Probably because I found Maggie to be comparatively likeable and less of a whiner. Plus, she actually took action to make things better, instead of sitting around and moaning...Yay!

The end was kind of a fizzle though. I wish there was some sort of catharsis, but really other than kissing and family get-togethers, there wasn't--at least not for me. As far as plot, nothing was settled. A big huge fizzle of a HFN with tons of dangling ends is all you have to hope for. Also the villain (if you can call it that)was pretty amorphous. A combo of entropy, bureaucracy and reality dissolution, I guess.

Feel free to comment, btw. I'm very interested in hearing what other readers think.

On the reread 9/2018:
I am curious as to what actual teenagers think of this book. Most of the reviews here seem to be from adults like myself with a long history of reading McKinley. Most of us have similar reactions. DO actual teens read this? Do they enjoy it without (our) baggage/expectations? Does it work for them? I wonder if it was fun to read? Dated? (i.e. pogo sticks in 2013?!) Silly? Boring? Weird? Pretentious?

If you are a teen and read this, what did you think?

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, but with two pretty significant caveats. First, I don't think McKinley is very good at writing teenagers (see also: Dragonhaven). Shadows is a first person perspective of a girl who is a senior in high school, but she seems to act like someone much older. To some degree, the extent to which I could enjoy the book depended on how much I could ignore that it was supposed to be about teenagers.

The second caveat is that the ending felt more like a non-ending. This book is begging for a sequel (and it looks like we won't be getting one). Although Maggie and friends manage to rescue Val and Takahiro, the big looming problems haven't been dealt with. Not all problems have to be solved within the course of a novel, but the cobey issue is one that seems integral to the story, and it hasn't been solved. Also, there's the issue where Val and Takahiro were arrested in the first place, and that hasn't been solved. Maggie says "welcome to the new Newworld," but I don't think it's true, yet, because we haven't seen that anything has changed. One cobey was closed, some arrested people were rescued, but it doesn't seem like the real problems presented in the novel were dealt with. I didn't have a sense of closure when I finished the book. Ultimately, I think it would be much better if it had a sequel.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a long-time border collie owner and someone who used to volunteer at a dog shelter, obviously I was going to love this book. (The heroine, a dog-crazy shelter volunteer, has a FABULOUS border collie!) But even if none of those coincidences were there, this book still would have felt like the MOST fun. I'd been anticipating it for ages (Robin McKinley has been one of my very top favorite writers ever since I was 11 years old!), so when it arrived, I tossed everything else aside and dived in...and oh, did I love it. I devoured it in one fabulous day, and I'm looking forward to re-reading it again and again. It was just the most *fun* book I've read in a long time - and oh, I do love the romantic interest! I cheered when the heroine chose him.

If you liked McKinley's SUNSHINE, then this will be your kind of book, too. (No vampires, but a very similar kind of setting, tone, and alternate contemporary fantasy setting.) If you like dogs and origami and magic and humor - and magic - they're all in here, too. Enjoy!

[Jenn Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robin McKinley channeling Diana Wynne Jones is an awesome thing to behold. I adored this book. Have already made plans for my daughter to read this whereas I've also recommended she NOT read the Twilight series. (That shouldn't need an explanation.) We were lucky enough to find this gem at our local library. Have high hopes that this will become a series so I can read more about the origami folding wizard who saved her step-father against all odds. Also this has some of the most creative curse words I've heard of outside of the TV series Firefly. Dreeping and bugsuck are my personal faves ;-)

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent urban fantasy, even if it shares several elements with Sunshine. I think Robin McKinley's writing just makes me really happy. It's told from the point of high school senior Maggie who's just got an evil (??) stepfather. This she knows because there's these big slithery shadows crawling around the guy all the time. And there's this exceptionally hot college student working at the pizza place, and impossibly, he takes an interest in her.

It's set in an alternate universe like Sunshine's, that is, only a few steps over from ours. They have anti-magic government people, again like Sunshine. It's firmly YA as expected, but I find I don't have a problem with the genre if it's not absurdly-dramatic-dystopia where teens must save the day and do teen-drama things. There's a bit of the first here, but it's dialed way down, and the teen-drama is less drama and more really lovely friendship and bonding. And dogs! So many dogs, and one Maine Coon, and many insubstantial critters, and one feral sheep in the end. Several times I was reminded of a Thomas Brezina series about a girl and her dog and friends I loved as a kid, in the nicest way.

I guess my only criticism would be the conflict surrounding the cobeys wasn't very well fleshed out. It's said the things are another world's (or worlds'?) intrusion onto their world, but McKinley focuses on its immediate horror and the magic vs. technology dichotomy. Despite having characters interested in studying and averting all that weirdness. I guess that would be a perfect opportunity to set up a sequel. But I don't think she does sequels.

Oh, one more thing. The romance was really sweet in this one, and kind of surprising. You'd think it would be a love triangle, but it's really not.