A review by bibliotropic
Shadow by Amanda Sun

3.0

The prequel novella to the Paper Gods series, Shadow‘s chapters are told in the first person from alternating viewpoints, Katie’s and Tomohiro’s. Obviously, it takes place before the events of Ink, and doesn’t really reveal anything that didn’t get mentioned in the main novels of the series, so it’s hardly essential to the major story as a whole. However, it’s still interesting as character-building, as we get to see not only Katie’s grief over her mother’s death and her transition from a familiar life in the States to a rather unwanted life in Japan, but we also get to see things from Tomohiro’s perspective, trying to fight against his nightmares and hide his kami powers from those around him.

So interesting, absolutely, but really only if you got invested in the rest of the series and wanted to see a bit more of how it all began. Otherwise, there’s no harm done by skipping Shadow.