2022 SQHS Your Literate Life - BOOK REVIEWS ONLY discussion

Imagine a world where a talented artist can call the spirits of the dead through paintings. This is the power of Shadowshapers. Sierra, an artist herself, finds her whole world changed when she starts to see street paintings shifting and weeping, and people in her neighborhood start disappearing. Shortly after his wife’s death, her grandfather no longer has the ability to make a coherent sentence and her mother is clearly keeping secrets from her. Looking for answers, Sierra starts to piece together a complex puzzle that involves her family, her heritage, an eccentric anthology professor and a mysterious boy in her school she has always wondered about from afar. As she draws closer to the truth, her quest becomes far more dangerous because someone controlling the spirits wants to stop her. Sierra finds she must trust her friends – old and new – to help her uncover, and possibly even save, the whole Shadowshaper world she only just learned existed.

This is a short, readable book filled with enough mystery and action to pull me along and keep me engaged to find out what happens next. I listened to the audio version of the book, and the narrator – Anika Noni Rose – did such a good job with the character voices that they really came to life for me. She does great Brooklyn accents from all different ethnic backgrounds. Without her narration, the strong presence of family and friends in this novel might not have stood out as much to me. At times, I became confused by the magical happenings in the story, and the author rushed some scenes, or in-between-scenes, that needed more time to build in order to feel authentic. However, despite its small stumbles, overall, I thought this was an enjoyable, entertaining fantasy read.

Sounds like a very interesting read! From your description, it almost sounds like the making of a Tim Burton film, I"m definitely gonna check it out.

the title as is sounds interesting.

I love your description of this book, it really hooked me when you said that it was a , "complex puzzle that involves her family, her heritage, an eccentric anthology professor and a mysterious boy in her school." Mysteries always intrigue me and this sounds like a very mysterious book that I would love to read. Definitely going to be added to my Want to Read List.

The premise for this book sounds really interesting. What was the world building like for this? Did it all make sense or do you still have major questions about how the world works, even after finishing the book?

Anna wrote: "The premise for this book sounds really interesting. What was the world building like for this? Did it all make sense or do you still have major questions about how the world works, even after fini..."

The world-building was partly there. The author tried, and what he wrote is extremely creative and imaginative, but I needed more. By the end, I was able to piece together some answers to some of my questions, yet I felt he had neglected to fully flesh out this world for readers. This is part of a series, and reviews said the second book is a little smoother, so hopefully I feel more "in" the world when reading that one rather than asking questions about it.