Shadows (Ashes, #2)

by Ilsa J Bick

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

It had been over 2 years since I read Ashes, so I didn't really remember all that much. I remembered the ending quite clearly, and that was all that mattered, since Shadows picks up exactly there. But then almost as soon as I was getting into it, it goes back to Rule, and I couldn't remember who any of these people are. It's no longer just about Alex, but about everyone she's come across on her journey. Seriously, Shadows jumps all over the place and I couldn't keep up. Alex is being held hostage, the people of Rule are being suspicious, Tom is doing whatever Tom does, some other people are being suspicious. It's kind of dizzying.

One of the first thing I noticed about Shadows was that it still has really short chapters with unnecessary cliffhangers at the end of them. This should keep the momentum going, but really, we find out either on the next page or just a few pages later what happens, and it's never anything life altering. It was just annoying. I was surprised by how fast I got though it though, since it is pretty long.

But the short chapters also made it hard to tell how much time as passing. Like the first book, there were plenty of time jumps. Anywhere from 2 to 10 days would pass between chapters. But is that X days from the end of the previous chapter, or X days from the last time we saw that character? Are all of the separate POVs happening at the same time, or are they chronological? I have no idea. Shadows was very jumpy, so it was hard to keep track of time and where all of the characters were.

Even with all of the different characters and perspectives, Shadows isn't all that interesting until the last 10% or so. The only story I was really interested in was Alex's. She tried to fight off some of The Changed after she was sent out of Rule, but they take her hostage. There are other humans with them, and it just showed how much smarter and more organized The Changed are than anticipated. Alex also suffers some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, or one of The Changed which she nicknamed Wolf was projecting some perverted images into her head. Weird stuff. Elsewhere, there's some plots to blow up zombies, take down Rule, and perform experiments on those who can potentially still change. There's also a lot of talk about the Amish, because apparently they're up to something, or were up to something. I don't even know.

So, Shadows was strange. I was mostly bored and confused, but got really into the ending, just like with Ashes. Although this time I will not be tacking on an extra star, because really, confusion outweighed everything. There were no recaps whatsoever, of anything that happened, or of who the characters are. This would have been really helpful since there are so many of them, but instead Shadows reads like a straight continuing of Ashes rather than a separate sequel.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.