Book 7 - Speeding Into Nothing

Title: Shadows

Author: Paula Weston

Genre: YA fantasy

Time for a much-needed breather from the Animorph-verse. PHEW. I forget what it's like to read anything else! Do other books even exist? Are Marco, Cassie, Jake, Tobias, Rachel, and Ax real? Are the Yeerks here? WHAT IS FICTION WHAT IS FACT???

Anyways.

Shadows.

So, at first I was into it. The book moves at a refreshingly swift pace, pulling the reader through the tiresome introductions and right into what we think is going to be the meat of the book. The protag's friends are with her right from the start, even as the reality they know falls away. Our hero, Gaby, is still reeling from a car accident that killed her brother when she meets a guy she literally sees in her dreams and comes to discover that she's actually a Rephaim - a half-angel bastard - who, until a year ago, spent her time teleporting around the globe killing demons and hellspawn, and hunting down the Rephaims' horny dads. Gaby and her human friends take this all in stride, diving straight into research mode so they can build a more complete picture of who and what Gaby is. There's none of that painfully predictable "I can't and won't believe it!" crap, and the universe's parameters are defined right away.

Unfortunately, this strategy ends up contributing to the book's weaknesses in the long run. Okay, great, the friends are on board - now what? The reader turns to Gaby's forgotten life, which includes a confusing mix of politics and hidden motivations and allegiances and betrayal. What should be the most intriguing part of the novel unfortunately becomes its most bewildering. Character motivations are unclear at the best of times, and then the reader has to navigate all the angelic classes and biblical names - a simple task for someone with a stronger knowledge base of such things going into the novel, but a struggle for just an average reader. Nathanial, Daniel, Rafael, Gabriel, Ezekiel...these names sound familiar, but I can't fully appreciate what - or if - the author is trying to say about figures in religious literature. Nor do I have any motivation to do that kind of extracurricular research for a muddled YA brain-candy book.

All in all, this was a big fat fizzle. The plot didn't go anywhere, really - it was more like a tightly wound coil, turning over itself again and again until we finally stopped, barely anywhere further than where we had begun.

I will say one thing, though: the setting is wonderfully rendered. I could feel the giant ferns brushing my face, the oppressive Australian heat on my skin, palm trees and sand and sun........

But I DEMAND a better story!

Rating: ☕☕☕/5