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A review by aprildiamond
The Shadow Cipher by Laura Ruby
5.0
From the first time I read this I loved it. 3 kids trying to solve a cipher hidden throughout New York in order to save their home sounded like a lot of fun. And then I read it and it was fun, but I also got so much more.
Here's what I liked at face-value:
Setting: I know a book is good when it inspires me to learn more about it. The York series did this. I visited New York for the first time after I had read the first two books, and I was having a great time locating different places the characters visited on a map and sometimes doing the same things they did. I've read other things set in New York but none of them made me feel as excited about the city as this one did, so that was really cool.
Characters: I loved all three of the main cast. Laura Ruby writes real characters, with flaws, varied personalities, and their own struggles/hopes. They all interacted with each other incredibly well, making the story as much about them as it is about the plot. Even the secondary characters are great (Aunt Esther and Cricket, I'm looking at you). And there's representation! I've read books that tried to convince me that only white people lived in New York City, which is kind of funny. Glad we didn't get that here. And not just in race, but also in that one of the main characters has anxiety.
Ciphers/Plot: I'm a giant cryptology fan, so the premise was already exciting. That being said, even though the clues shifted away from being actual ciphers, I didn't mind, because they were interesting anyway. In the scheme of things, the cipher wasn't the important part of the plot, it was the fact that the kids were going to lose their home and they were doing anything they could to stop it. That was really powerful to me. (Of course, with the ending the motives have changed but that's for book 2!)
Writing: I normally don't talk about the writing unless it's super bad or super good. This was the latter. The writing was different in a good way. Sometimes the narration is unexpectedly funny. The metaphors are strange in the way that demands a second to think about their meaning. Sometimes things are described not by how they look, but how they make you feel. But it never feels pretentious, just interesting. Like when the characters are flying on the solarship and Ruby describes the smell of the air. It made me feel things, but not any emotion I could really pinpoint.
However, this book (and series) is always operating on a deeper level. Every time I've reread this, I've found something new that I hadn't noticed before. This time it was that the dictionary Theo lost was found by Cricket, a connection that I missed numerous times. There are so many hidden meanings, especially after reading the 2nd book and coming back here (the foreshadowing is so real...).
Throughout the book, we find out that not everything is exactly normal with this cipher, we see that machines seem to have their own motives, we know that something is coming, but we have no idea what yet. It goes from kids trying to solve clues to something much, much bigger, and I LOVE stories like that.
Alternate timelines are so cool. The first time I read this, it didn't hit me that this wasn't our New York until the Statue of Liberty was described as its original copper color and I did, like, a triple take.
There's also this underlying message about history and the people/things that are forgotten/lost because they aren't part of the story history is trying to tell, which is also giving me vibes that it's gonna connect later on, so a lot of good things here.
Best Scene Award:
Tied between the train scene (that was so intense wtf) and the tunnel scene (no spoilers but that had me SHOOK the first time I read it)
Overall, wow.
Here's what I liked at face-value:
Setting: I know a book is good when it inspires me to learn more about it. The York series did this. I visited New York for the first time after I had read the first two books, and I was having a great time locating different places the characters visited on a map and sometimes doing the same things they did. I've read other things set in New York but none of them made me feel as excited about the city as this one did, so that was really cool.
Characters: I loved all three of the main cast. Laura Ruby writes real characters, with flaws, varied personalities, and their own struggles/hopes. They all interacted with each other incredibly well, making the story as much about them as it is about the plot. Even the secondary characters are great (Aunt Esther and Cricket, I'm looking at you). And there's representation! I've read books that tried to convince me that only white people lived in New York City, which is kind of funny. Glad we didn't get that here. And not just in race, but also in that one of the main characters has anxiety.
Ciphers/Plot: I'm a giant cryptology fan, so the premise was already exciting. That being said, even though the clues shifted away from being actual ciphers, I didn't mind, because they were interesting anyway. In the scheme of things, the cipher wasn't the important part of the plot, it was the fact that the kids were going to lose their home and they were doing anything they could to stop it. That was really powerful to me. (Of course, with the ending the motives have changed but that's for book 2!)
Writing: I normally don't talk about the writing unless it's super bad or super good. This was the latter. The writing was different in a good way. Sometimes the narration is unexpectedly funny. The metaphors are strange in the way that demands a second to think about their meaning. Sometimes things are described not by how they look, but how they make you feel. But it never feels pretentious, just interesting. Like when the characters are flying on the solarship and Ruby describes the smell of the air. It made me feel things, but not any emotion I could really pinpoint.
However, this book (and series) is always operating on a deeper level. Every time I've reread this, I've found something new that I hadn't noticed before. This time it was that the dictionary Theo lost was found by Cricket, a connection that I missed numerous times. There are so many hidden meanings, especially after reading the 2nd book and coming back here (the foreshadowing is so real...).
Throughout the book, we find out that not everything is exactly normal with this cipher, we see that machines seem to have their own motives, we know that something is coming, but we have no idea what yet. It goes from kids trying to solve clues to something much, much bigger, and I LOVE stories like that.
Alternate timelines are so cool. The first time I read this, it didn't hit me that this wasn't our New York until the Statue of Liberty was described as its original copper color and I did, like, a triple take.
There's also this underlying message about history and the people/things that are forgotten/lost because they aren't part of the story history is trying to tell, which is also giving me vibes that it's gonna connect later on, so a lot of good things here.
Best Scene Award:
Tied between the train scene (that was so intense wtf) and the tunnel scene (no spoilers but that had me SHOOK the first time I read it)
Overall, wow.