Shadows by Robin McKinley

TL;DR getting rid of witchcraft doesn't go as planned

(finished 10/24/15)

not on TBR

Shadows was one of the very rare books I pick up from the library that isn't on my TBR. I almost didn't read it because it sat at the bottom of my book stack, but I'm glad I decided to after all.

The first thing I really noticed was the voice of Maggie. She sounded unique and effectively used run-on sentences to be interesting rather than appearing like a lack of grammar skills. It could definitely come off as annoying, but I liked it.

The worldbuilding could have been stronger, but I think it's believable considering what we learn about Maggie and the world itself. There's not too much room to develop the magic when it's in first person and Maggie lives in a kind of world that's tried to erase magic. Maybe there could've been a way to integrate more worldbuilding, but I think it functions.

I'm very intrigued by the laws of the universe in Shadows. I would actually love to know more about it. I'm actually a little sad that it's not explored more (since Goodreads tells me Shadows is a standalone). The ending was a little disappointing in that it was super open-ended and left a whole bunch of room for more plot but it's just like "oh. We're done. Use your imagination, I guess."

Maybe it is part of a larger series and I'm just unaware. I don't know. I've never read any of Robin McKinley's books before. Which is also apparently why I'm in the minority on this book -- the negative reviews seemed disappointed because of the bar her other books set.

The dustjacket blurb was pretty useless. Caz didn't have nearly as much of a part in the plot as the blurb made it out to be, and Val, Takahiro, and Jill had a lot more presence than I expected.

I liked all the characters. They weren't too developed, but they felt human within the scope of the story. I also got surprisingly attached to them. Mainly Takahiro. I think also the problem with the human-ness was that the story is supposedly a standalone, so there was a lot of stuff going on that had to be covered, and the plot took more precedence than making the characters feel like they could jump right out of the book.

(I have determined my basis for "human-ness" or realistic-ness of characters is if I can come up with headcanons for them outside of the story. So, for Shadows, I can't, but I still liked the characters nonetheless.)

(I'm also pretty sure I make no sense with saying they don't feel developed but yet I love them anyway. I don't know. Take it at face value?)

The only things I sticky-noted were these two pieces of dialogue and a surprising spoiler that I left off for the sake of preserving said spoiler. Which is also why I redacted some of the second quote. (The first two little paragraph sections below go together.)

"[...] Usually the Mammothmobile is stuck to the side of your house by several months' worth of cobwebs because nobody wants to pay for the gas." [Maggie]

"Nah," said Jill. "Greg takes it out at least once a month and runs over any small annoying children that have piled up in our neighborhood since the last time he took it out. [...]" (pg 252 - 253)

"I didn't have a clue," Jill said, "but Caz figured it out instantly and was like whipping his socks off and I'm all whoa, I'm fine for skinny-dipping but where's the lake, but then [spoiler] and I finally got it." (pg 342) 

(That last quote. I just about died. Jill is my fave.)

Adding onto the blurb uselessness, I had no idea that the plot would take the direction it would. I mean, it's good in that it didn't reveal any important information past the exposition / inciting incident, but I was still vaguely "??" for a good part of the plot. Maybe a lot of that was my inability to guess where the story would go. Which can be a very good thing. It didn't frustrate me at all, which is good. It kept me intrigued.

Like I said earlier, I wasn't too happy with the end, but that was mainly because I felt like I was being cheated out of a lot of good subsequent adventures. I would love to see the continuation. (I just want to see more of the characters, honestly. Despite saying they weren't the most human I still got really attached to them.)

TL;DR I really liked Shadows for its characters and its world but I haven't read any of the other books by the same author so I can't say if it's on par for the author or not.