Shadow by Amanda Sun

Shadow (The Paper Gods, #0.5)

by Amanda Sun

I looked down at the paper, still touching the tip of my shoe.

I reached for it, flipping the page over to look. Scrawls of ink outlined a drawing of a girl lying on a bench. A sick feeling started to twist in my stomach, like motion sickness. And then the girl in the drawing turned her head, and her inky eyes glared straight into mine.

On the heels of a family tragedy, the last thing Katie Greene wants to do is move halfway across the world. Stuck with her aunt in Shizuoka, Japan, Katie feels lost. Alone. She doesn't know the language, she can barely hold a pair of chopsticks, and she can't seem to get the hang of taking her shoes off whenever she enters a building. Then there's gorgeous but aloof Tomohiro, star of the school's kendo team.

How did he really get the scar on his arm? Katie isn't prepared for the answer. But when she sees the things he draws start moving, there's no denying the truth: Tomo has a connection to the ancient gods of Japan, and being near Katie is causing his abilities to spiral out of control. If the wrong people notice, they'll both be targets. Katie never wanted to move to Japan-now she may not make it out of the country alive.

Reviewed by inlibrisveritas on

4 of 5 stars

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Wow! I wish I had read this before Ink! Shadow starts while Katie is still in the US, the day of her mother’s funeral. We get to see the moments that pushed her to staying with her aunt in Japan and we get to see the beginning stages of her attempting to start her life over in a foreign country. As an added plus we get treated to chapters in Tomohiro’s point of view, where we get to see the nightmares that haunt him and his strained relationship with Myu. I loved that this gave him a chance to explain his personality more and I think that if I had read it prior to Ink I might have warmed up to him a bit quicker. I really enjoyed the added depth to the story and it’s always nice to see what happens directly before the main book starts. We get to see what drives the characters into making the decisions we get to see first hand in Ink. It’s a cheaper novella (free when I downloaded it) and so I think that if you enjoyed Ink or are curious to see if you might like it then give it a shot. Everything has the same feel too it and you get to see how the writing style is for the Japanese culture, which isn’t for everyone as it does use some Japanese words here and there.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 5 August, 2013: Finished reading
  • 5 August, 2013: Reviewed