Book Description
Memories begin to haunt Darcy when a new boy arrives at her high school, and he makes her feel both desire and desired in a way she hadn’t thought possible. But Conn’s interest in her is confusing. It doesn’t line up with the way he first looked at her.
As if she were his enemy.
When Conn betrays Darcy, she realizes that she can’t rely on anything—not herself, not the laws of nature, and certainly not him. Darcy decides to infiltrate the Shadow Society and uncover the Shades’ latest terrorist plot. What she finds out will change her world forever . . .
In this smart, compulsively readable novel, master storyteller Marie Rutkoski has crafted an utterly original world, characters you won’t soon forget, and a tale full of intrigue and suspense.
MY THOUGHTS
LOVED IT
Darcy doesn’t understand why she seems different from other people. Even though she is stuck in foster care when she was abandoned at a firehouse at the age of five, she has always been a bit peculiar. Finally finding a stable home in her last year of high school, she meets a new boy in her English class, where they are paired together for a group project. Her tight circle of friends don’t like or trust the guy. Conn has injected himself right into her life and just when she thinks she has found a boy to crush, he crushes her. As she gets to know Conn, flashes of her life before she was abandon come into her mind. When Conn arrests her for being a terrorist, she finds out the truth about her past.
As Darcy starts to figure out her past, she discovers that she is part of the Shades, a shadow society that is not human but a supernatural force with powers. Although Conn has arrested her, he doesn’t believe she is one of the Terrorists that caused a rift between the humans and Shades nor is she horribly evil as he been taught. Forced to infiltrate the Shades as a spy for her life, she finds the Shades aren’t as evil as Conn has made them out to be. In turn, a Shade befriends her and Orion in turn makes her into a double agent. When Darcy realizes that each society has there good and bad people, she tries to bring them together.
The story revolves around an alternate universe where the Chicago Fire was set to clear out the Shades. I really enjoyed the story and think it would be a wonderful read for younger teens. There is just enough suspense to be scary but not keep anyone from sleeping. There are mentions of alcohol, some kissing and some violence. I really hope that there is another installment for this world of Shades.
Details
- Reading level: Ages 12 and up
- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); First Edition edition (October 16, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0374349053
- ISBN-13: 978-0374349059
This sounds interesting, is it one of those books where the reading is trying to figure out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are or is it just the characters struggling to figuring things out?