The Shadows book summary:

The Shadows is a mixture of thriller and horror by Alex North. It was published this year by Celadon books. This book has three-point of view through Paul Adams, a younger Paul Adams, and Amanda (a police officer). There is a legend that revolves around the woods where Paul Adams use to live. All of the locals call the woods ‘The Shadows’. This is where Charlie disappeared from many many years ago.

When Paul makes it back to this area he has realized over the years that since then multiple kids have wound up dead. What has been going on all of these years? And why hasn’t anyone connected the incidents with what happened with Charlie? Paul doesn’t think it’s just a coincidence and he wants to figure out what happened.

What I thought about The Shadows:

The Shadows is a psychological horror by Alex North. It is about an urban legend that has haunted this small town for years. Everyone knows about what happened in the past when Charlie and his friend killed someone. What could have caused him and another kid to do something so horrific? Is there something out in the woods that tempted Charlie to groom the others into doing something they wouldn’t have normally done? And now years later why are there so many kids still being killed? Have the police not connected the dots?

The Plot 

So, I don’t really know how I feel about this book. I feel like The Shadows was really hyped especially after everyone started reading Alex North’s last book. I was one of those readers that was pretty excited about reading this book. I loved Alex’s last book and this one sounded pretty creepy.

The Shadows ended up being a little bit of a letdown. The book started off really slow to me. It ended up taking me a while to get through the first portion of the book. The middle is actually pretty good and grabbed my attention. It was creepy and made me want to know more. What was going to happen? What happened to Charlie and what happened to James? Why didn’t Paul do more to help out his friend James? They had their differences but you would think Paul would do a little more to help him, especially after he found out what he did about Paul.

Other than the beginning being really slow I also hated how it ended. The ending was such a disappointment and wasn’t really what I was expecting. I was kind of expecting one of those what the heck just happened moments and it never came. I was expecting more to happen and it just wasn’t there. So the ending left me disappointed and aggravated at the same time. The Shadows is a book I probably won’t reread at least not for a while anyway.

The Characters

Alex did a really good job at making Charlie’s character. There’s this creepiness about the kid that really makes you uneasy. I know I never would have been friends with a kid like him. When he starts talking about lucid dreaming and that they would have been able to visit each other in their dreams is the day I would have stopped talking to him. It would be fun to kind of imagine being able to do something like that but I would have soon realized how serious Charlie believed in that kind of thing. I think this idea really made the book and caught my attention.

There are three points of view with The Shadows. There is Paul Adams, the younger Paul Adams, and a police officer named Amanda. I know when I first started the book I was a little bit confused about whose perspective I was reading from. Eventually, I did catch on and was able to figure out who was who but it would have been nice to be able to figure that out from the very beginning of the book.

I felt really bad about how Paul grew up. He didn’t really have the best of friends and he was alone most of the time. When a certain kid ends up being killed he wasn’t really treated right either. The police did him dirty by showing him things no sixteen-year-old should have seen. Not just a sixteen-year-old though but pretty much anyone. What he went through was bad and I felt horrible for him. If I had been his mother I probably would have sued the police in a heartbeat. It made me so mad and if I was Paul I don’t think I would ever forgive the police.

Have any of you guys read this book yet? If so what did you think? Did you enjoy it more than I did?

If you like this review then you might like Children of Chicago.