Review: The Shadow Society by: Marie Rutkoski

The Shadow Society by: Marie Rutkoski (Aug. 26, 2014)

416 pages

Genre: Young Adult/Paranormal

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Source: The library.

Purchase: Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository | Amazon

Goodreads Summary: Darcy Jones doesn’t remember anything before the day she was abandoned as a child outside a Chicago firehouse. She has never really belonged anywhere—but she couldn’t have guessed that she comes from an alternate world where the Great Chicago Fire didn’t happen and deadly creatures called Shades terrorize the human population.

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 . . .

Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together....

My Review

First Line: “Knowing what I know now, I’d say my foster mother had her reasons for throwing a kitchen knife at me.”

Warning: I do a lot of rambling in this review. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't really find a good way to organize my thoughts. I'm sorry if it is hard to follow.

Besides that first line of The Shadow Society, although it had a unique world, it was using a lot of young adult book stereotypes and slightly eh, but luckily it slowly pushed past those as I was reading. I began reading the book at first with no real investment in anything and then just BAM, things changed. I got interested.

I love the alternate worlds in The Shadow Society and the differences in each because of one event that occurred in one but not the other. I liked exploring the other Chicago, the one where the Great Chicago Fire didn’t happen. I may have enjoyed this world more than your average reader because I live in Illinois near Chicago, but it was pretty darn cool. The whole concept of being a shade (read the book to learn more about this) was unique and refreshing as well.

The characters were interesting but only good, not great. I liked Darcy just fine and Conn was pretty complex. I really did enjoy reading about them. On the other hand, I wasn’t a big fan of the romance/relationship in this one. If only honesty was more important to these kids I would have had a little more respect for them and I would have cheered them on.

I don’t read a lot of young adult stand-alone novels (mostly because they don't interest me or I can't find really good ones) so I was excited to find this one, especially since I loved the author’s book The Winner’s Curse. Although The Shadow Society isn’t as good as her other book, it was an above average young adult stand-alone novel. One of the selling points to get you to read The Shadow Society may be that it had a satisfying ending, which was very nice since I feel like I’m always reading endings with huge cliff hangers. I like mixing it up. There was a good amount of action in The Shadow Society, but sadly not quite enough to appease my hunger for action in my books. It did have the good ending action scene, but that was about it.

Do I think you should read The Shadow Society? I don’t think it would hurt. It was a good paranormal young adult novel and I think would be a really good choice if you are looking for a stand-alone book. One more small thing, I do love the cover.