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A review by magnoliabloomfield
Shadows by Ilsa J. Bick
3.0
Really I’d give it more of a 2.5. I really liked the first book, even with the annoying child, and the cliffhanger ending was great. But I’m slightly disappointed with this second book.
First of all it’s a different narration than the first one, Ashes was just Alex’s third person POV and now we follow at least three, sometimes only one page chapters at a time.
I could do without cannibals having a sex life.
It woulda been nice to know what happened to Ellie but she’s barely even mentioned.
Then we get things like Tom going “Haha right, I’m not going to help this bad guy after everything he just did! He doesn’t deserve it!” To going straight over and helping the bad guy and doesn’t even save him and Tom almost dies for NOTHING.
Also we kind of stopped learning about the condition of the world and the technicalities of the Changing, and Alex’s abilities aren’t explained or expanded any more than seeing movie trailers in her mind of every act of sexual assault the cannibal boys imagine doing to her.
It feels like we went from this big, wide story about a global scifi event in book one, to a micro zoomed scope of just the drama happening between people.
And we understand it’s cold, you don’t have to say “their eyes puckered” every time someone steps outside.
Some action scenes that, looking back on it now, weren’t really essential to the plot for more than a little were stretched out way too long.
I lost track of who was telling what lies to who and what was the truth, and there were sometimes where I’d hear that line from the book “Character’s and Viewpoint” by Orson Scott Card on writing: “well that’s convenient.” Like, when everything goes wrong ten ways to Sunday but when it seems like the end there’s a really flimsy answer/escape that you’re like “… in what version of reality…?” I get that it’s fiction and you have to suspend belief a little, but not so much that your audience gets ejected from the story.
I still have some high hopes for finishing the series, maybe it’s like the Southern Reach trilogy where the first and last books were great but the middle one was garbage.
First of all it’s a different narration than the first one, Ashes was just Alex’s third person POV and now we follow at least three, sometimes only one page chapters at a time.
I could do without cannibals having a sex life.
It woulda been nice to know what happened to Ellie but she’s barely even mentioned.
Then we get things like Tom going “Haha right, I’m not going to help this bad guy after everything he just did! He doesn’t deserve it!” To going straight over and helping the bad guy and doesn’t even save him and Tom almost dies for NOTHING.
Also we kind of stopped learning about the condition of the world and the technicalities of the Changing, and Alex’s abilities aren’t explained or expanded any more than seeing movie trailers in her mind of every act of sexual assault the cannibal boys imagine doing to her.
It feels like we went from this big, wide story about a global scifi event in book one, to a micro zoomed scope of just the drama happening between people.
And we understand it’s cold, you don’t have to say “their eyes puckered” every time someone steps outside.
Some action scenes that, looking back on it now, weren’t really essential to the plot for more than a little were stretched out way too long.
I lost track of who was telling what lies to who and what was the truth, and there were sometimes where I’d hear that line from the book “Character’s and Viewpoint” by Orson Scott Card on writing: “well that’s convenient.” Like, when everything goes wrong ten ways to Sunday but when it seems like the end there’s a really flimsy answer/escape that you’re like “… in what version of reality…?” I get that it’s fiction and you have to suspend belief a little, but not so much that your audience gets ejected from the story.
I still have some high hopes for finishing the series, maybe it’s like the Southern Reach trilogy where the first and last books were great but the middle one was garbage.