that epilogue was the sweetest thing ever.
4.5 stars, rtc ( )

I was one of the lucky ones to get an early copy, and...Shadow is amazing. It has a strong and consistent plotline, well-written characters, and it incorporates a lot of the original Peter Pan into it. One of my all time favorite series' is the Peter Pan spinoff Peter and the Starcatchers (by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson) and Kara Swanson (perhaps accidentally) included a lot of personality from it as well as the fundamental ideas behind the world of Peter and the Starcatchers.

If you read the original Peter Pan, you can see it tells of his killing his Lost Boys and being this kind of ruthless, careless, self-centered child, and Kara Swanson did an amazing job portraying that while also revealing the thoughts (or lack thereof) behind those actions. She did an incredible job developing his character, and showing him discovering how awful he had been. I feel a lot of authors are prone to jump from a character being blind to their faults and mistakes to the character saying "I'm sorry" and then the other characters forgive them and things are fine. Kara Swanson is really good at showing not only him realizing his horrible behavior, but seeing it, apologizing (for actual things, not just "I'm sorry."), and then working to fix things.

I've found that it is rare to find a book written for teens or adults that doesn't cuss. It's something that may seem minor to some, but I really appreciated it.

I've never been much of a fan of fantasy or YA, but...Shadow is really good. It doesn't feel like YA as strongly as I would have expected. Claire doesn't resent dressing up, she doesn't blow off his compliments, she doesn't belittle her abilities. Peter doesn't just say "I'm sorry" and have her automatically forgive him. He sees his faults. He fixes things.

One last thing that I *love*: I have often been sad when a book ends, and wished that there could just be one more scene to show something of life after the main plotline has concluded, and Shadow came through for me.

Shadow is well-written, and though I am hesitant to say a book is one of my favorites...this book is up there. Shadow is...amazing.

Here are the songs I listened to while reading it (they are all completely clean), here's what I would recommend: Listen to all of them before reading Shadow to get a feel for them. Then when you read it, play the songs in the background and skip if something doesn't fit the mood. and when you read chapter 28 (the last chapter) play Stargazing by Kygo, followed by Moon River by Audrey Hepburn.
Here are the songs:
- Fake a Smile by Alan Walker ft. Salem Ilese

- Alone II by Alan Walker ft. Ava Max

- Moments to Memories by Adeline Hill

- Rise Up by Andra Day

- Upset With Me by David Archuleta

- Stardust by MIKA

- You by benny blanco, Vance Joy, Marshmello (this is my theme song for Shadow)

- Starlight by Taylor Swift

- Ground Control by All Time Low ft. Tegan and Sara

- Earth by K-391

- Stargazing by Kygo ft. Justin Jesso

- Moon River by Audrey Hepburn

- Walls by ROZES ft. Mat Kearney (my theme song for Dust) ( )

Alrighty! Review to come! ( )

This book was kind of amazing. They finally FINALLY make it to Neverland after the entire first book of them not making it to Neverland. And things are not anything like what Claire expected. Which is understandable. She did choose to trust Hook after all. And her brother is, well, not exactly the way she remembers him. He's kind of a mess. And Peter is Peter and we love him, but Boy, you got some growing up to do. Tiger Lily got to be more of a badass than I've ever seen her. The lost boys are everything you hoped for and more. Even Hook was a more complex character than usual. He even had his good/nearly good moments.

And Claire and Peter are end game, if they survive. I cannot tell you how many times in the book I wasn't sure if they would survive! And actually, now that I've finished the book, I still don't know if they survived. (JK, I do actually know, but I'm not spoiling anything!) This version of Neverland made sense but it was much stranger and much scarier than the childhood story I grew up with. It's not a world I would want to live in, but everything about why Claire and her brother are drawn there comes together perfectly. This was a solid read and I recommend it to anyone who loves Peter Pan. ( )

What I think you should know:
Shadow by Kara Swanson is a Young Adult Fantasy. It is the second book in the Heir of Neverland series and picks up shortly after Dust. I highly recommend that you read Dust prior to starting this book.

What you might need to know:
For a Young Adult book this has a lot of dark themes and death of characters. I would not allow your young YA reader to read it without reading it yourself prior to them reading so that you can decide for yourself if it is appropriate for them and be prepared to talk to them about the book.

What I think about this book:
As a reader I LOVED this book. Swanson took beloved Neverland and made it into something of nightmares and while this sounds disturbing it was brilliant. I don’t even know how to describe just how impactful this book was. To see how first Peter and then Connor changed Neverland through their selfish actions. It was hard to see Claire suffer after growing to love her in the first and I struggled with some of the choices that the author made, but it all came together in the end to create a story that was captivating.

My YA son has been anxiously awaiting this book since he read Dust. He said that is the best book he has read this year, and while it took him on an emotional rollercoaster it was perfect.

In addition to buying a copy for my son I received a complimentary copy of this book from Celebrate Lit, this in no way influenced my review. All opinions are my own. ( )