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A review by belles_bookshelves
Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell
4.0
At first I wasn't totally sure about this book. I don't read much mystery or ghost stories so I didn't know what to expect. I wasn't really expecting to like it, but I still felt compelled to read it for some reason. Turns out that was a good thing.
Quick Overview: Iris and her best friend Collete are 14 and live in a tiny and boring Louisianna town. They spend the hot summer days pretending to cast spells in the cemetary, one day though Iris actaully sees the ghost of a boy. He continues to haunt her and cause her problems. He only ever tells her the same thing though, "Where y'at Iris?". The ghost is of a boy named Elijah who dissappeared from the small town years ago. Iris is determined to figure out how he died, with the help of Collete and a local boy named Ben. But Iris has more than just the ghost to worry about, with Collete suddenly being boy crazy and rumors about how or actually who killed Elijah flying around the small town.
The only reason I took off a star was because the story felt slow at times and at the beginning I kept imagining the characters to be younger than 14. Mostly because of the playing pretend thing. I don't think that avid ghost story readers will like it as much though. It's not scary, but more of a supernatural mystery.
Iris is probably the coolest 14 year old ever. What I wish I could've been like at her age(except for the playing pretend part though. By that age I'd already long done finished with that). I don't know what to say about the writing except that it's plain good. It's just plain good writing. 'Nuff said. The setting was done perfectly. I had no problem picturing the small town and it's people. All the characters were drawn out great. The author really captured the relationships and how things start to change around that time in your life. The ending was not shocking, but far from predictable. The book reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird, with it's phenominal setting and Iris's voice. I would definitely like to read more about Iris, but I think this will be the only one. A great, honestly funny, and spooky coming of age story.
Quick Overview: Iris and her best friend Collete are 14 and live in a tiny and boring Louisianna town. They spend the hot summer days pretending to cast spells in the cemetary, one day though Iris actaully sees the ghost of a boy. He continues to haunt her and cause her problems. He only ever tells her the same thing though, "Where y'at Iris?". The ghost is of a boy named Elijah who dissappeared from the small town years ago. Iris is determined to figure out how he died, with the help of Collete and a local boy named Ben. But Iris has more than just the ghost to worry about, with Collete suddenly being boy crazy and rumors about how or actually who killed Elijah flying around the small town.
The only reason I took off a star was because the story felt slow at times and at the beginning I kept imagining the characters to be younger than 14. Mostly because of the playing pretend thing. I don't think that avid ghost story readers will like it as much though. It's not scary, but more of a supernatural mystery.
Iris is probably the coolest 14 year old ever. What I wish I could've been like at her age(except for the playing pretend part though. By that age I'd already long done finished with that). I don't know what to say about the writing except that it's plain good. It's just plain good writing. 'Nuff said. The setting was done perfectly. I had no problem picturing the small town and it's people. All the characters were drawn out great. The author really captured the relationships and how things start to change around that time in your life. The ending was not shocking, but far from predictable. The book reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird, with it's phenominal setting and Iris's voice. I would definitely like to read more about Iris, but I think this will be the only one. A great, honestly funny, and spooky coming of age story.