A review by synth
Shadowboxer by Jessica L. Webb

1.0

I had a really hard time finishing that book. On the one hand I appreciated the balance between storylines, romance and social work; as well as the more-realistic-than-usual development of the romance, and some of the social commentary. However, many problems made it impossible for me to enjoy the story. For one, everyone is white. And then, the criticism of society, capitalism, classism, etc, although sometimes better than perfunctory, always falls back onto the preservation of the status quo, including the police being majoritarily made off of good people. This also means the main "villain" is a deranged woman who wants to kill hundreds of the people she's actually fighting for, somehow? The fact that the author had to vilify the main character making those points against the system shows how much sense she was actually making up until the "let's bomb the shit out of those marginalized people I'm trying to show society need respect and help".

So yeah, sadly very very disappointing on many levels, when there was so much potential shining through the author's ideas (idk if she had to dial down the social commentary for publication's sake or if it was of her own volition but :/).