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A review by pumpkinspiciest
Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda Bond
3.0
So a big thing with me is magicians. I LOVE stories about magicians. Movies involving magic. I mean illusion magic. I mean, fantasy magic is fun too, but I love illusionists. It’s so fun! I’m also a big fan of Gwenda’s Lois Lane series. I mean, 2 things I’m into, so I was happy to get a chance to read this via NetGalley. And I liked it! It wasn’t a showstopper book for me, but it was great to read over the weekend. It was a fast read and a good summer read if you just want to read something where you can jump in and out around your other weekend plans. It’s a good poolside read. It’s not too heavy, it’s not too light, keeps you interested enough to try to figure out where it’s going.
We follow the story of Moira, the daughter of a famous magician who wants to be a magician herself, but her father is very against it. She makes her way to a traveling circus by an accident and then another accident lands her a job as a mid-way magician. She discovers a secret about herself while in this circus. It’s pretty huge and it causes her to fall into a mob-like group that wants something from her and the circus.
I like the way Gwenda writes her female characters. In a lot of YA I feel like writers often just rely heavily on women being naive and having someone save them from the naivete. But Gwenda doesn’t write females like that. Sure, sometimes they make dumb decisions, but that’s just being human. The women aren’t stupid just to make the story easier to build around them, to fit what maybe YA readers expect. Sometimes they can be almost too smart and put themselves more into danger! But that’s okay, it’s a welcome change.
I haven’t read the first book in this series so I wondered if I’d be lost but I really wasn’t. I’m sure there were nods that I missed and some of the backstory with Dita, Jules, Remy, etc. was probably lost on me. But I didn’t feel like I had to know that story to enjoy this one. I wasn’t totally kept in the dark about their story, parts came out while reading Moira’s story. It felt natural that way, so even though I was learning new things halfway through this book that were probably covered in the first book, I appreciated how natural that exposition felt. Not like, here’s a rehash at the beginning of the book and now you’re caught up (that’s a pain point with me in series books).
I did have a problem with the two bad people in this book. I know they were supposed to sound scary/creepy/unreliable but I really just felt like they were jammed in there. I almost wish they’d been part of the circus just so we could constantly see how creepy/unreliable they were. I think with them coming in and out, it just made it feel like they were caricatures of bad guys. At one point in the book the description of their ceremony put visions of LARP players in my head, which made it not seem at all as scary as it was being written. That part was a let-down for me because they were the bad guys in the story and in the end they didn’t add anything.
I’m glad I got a chance to read this, I think it was a nice weekend read.
We follow the story of Moira, the daughter of a famous magician who wants to be a magician herself, but her father is very against it. She makes her way to a traveling circus by an accident and then another accident lands her a job as a mid-way magician. She discovers a secret about herself while in this circus. It’s pretty huge and it causes her to fall into a mob-like group that wants something from her and the circus.
I like the way Gwenda writes her female characters. In a lot of YA I feel like writers often just rely heavily on women being naive and having someone save them from the naivete. But Gwenda doesn’t write females like that. Sure, sometimes they make dumb decisions, but that’s just being human. The women aren’t stupid just to make the story easier to build around them, to fit what maybe YA readers expect. Sometimes they can be almost too smart and put themselves more into danger! But that’s okay, it’s a welcome change.
I haven’t read the first book in this series so I wondered if I’d be lost but I really wasn’t. I’m sure there were nods that I missed and some of the backstory with Dita, Jules, Remy, etc. was probably lost on me. But I didn’t feel like I had to know that story to enjoy this one. I wasn’t totally kept in the dark about their story, parts came out while reading Moira’s story. It felt natural that way, so even though I was learning new things halfway through this book that were probably covered in the first book, I appreciated how natural that exposition felt. Not like, here’s a rehash at the beginning of the book and now you’re caught up (that’s a pain point with me in series books).
I did have a problem with the two bad people in this book. I know they were supposed to sound scary/creepy/unreliable but I really just felt like they were jammed in there. I almost wish they’d been part of the circus just so we could constantly see how creepy/unreliable they were. I think with them coming in and out, it just made it feel like they were caricatures of bad guys. At one point in the book the description of their ceremony put visions of LARP players in my head, which made it not seem at all as scary as it was being written. That part was a let-down for me because they were the bad guys in the story and in the end they didn’t add anything.
I’m glad I got a chance to read this, I think it was a nice weekend read.