TITLE: Shade
SERIES: Shade #1
AUTHOR: Jeri Smith-Ready
PUBLICATION DATE: May 4, 2010
PUBLISHER: Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
PAGES: 320 pages
FORMAT: Hardback
SOURCE: Purchased
RATING: 5 stars
Wow….this book left me a little speechless. If you are looking for a fun light novel, look elsewhere. When I bought this book, I was expecting a light spooky teen novel similar to The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade, but that’s not what I got. What I got was so much more.
This is the story of Aura Salvatore living in a world where all children born after a specific date (known as the Shift) can see (and hear and be tormented by) ghosts. Aura just happens to be the first child born after the Shift. Aura’s life takes an unexpected turn when her boyfriend, Logan dies suddenly. Aura struggles for to hold on to her relationship with Logan in his ghost state and goes through grief so deep I didn’t think I would recover, much less her.
Enter new student Zachary, who sets up the basic love triangle. Now usually I hate these types of triangles (mostly because the girl in the middle of the seem one dimensional ie Bella from Twilight, Zoey from House Of Night novels, and so on), but this one made me love it while breaking my heart. Aura has real depth and fights her attraction to Zach tooth and nail because she loves Logan so much.
Damn Jeri Smith-Ready for making me fall for both guys. This woman definitely knows how to make you feel the pain of her characters and I cried enough during this book that I literally had to let my pillow air out because it was too wet to sleep on.
Lucky for me May 3 (the release date for the sequel) isn’t too far away, but I think regardless of who Aura ends up with, I’m gonna be sad because I love them both. I also look forward to seeing where Aura’s research about the Shift leads.
Bows & Bullets Reviews 