The Shadow Society
by Marie Rutkoski
October 2012
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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 . . .
Guest Review by Sarah:
I chose this book for two reasons:
1) The opening line of the Prologue:
"Knowing what I know now, I'd say my foster mother had her
reasons for throwing a kitchen knife at me."
I mean, come on! How could I not want
to know what that was all about?
AND
2) The girl's boots on the cover. I
have serious boot envy.
When I started "The Shadow
Society," I was worried it was going to be a rehash quite a few
Young Adult novels I've read over the past few years:
We have a girl, Darcy Jones, who feels
like she doesn't really belong anywhere.
Cue the arrival of a mysterious new guy
at school, Connor McCrea, who apparently either likes or loathes our
heroine. It's surprising how many books for teens have this, "I
am irresistibly drawn to this guy who is either really into me too,
or quite possibly wants to kill me" dynamic going on.
They're paired together for a class
project.
Wait, haven't I read this book before?
I didn't have high hopes.
And then Rutkoski
hit me with the poetry, specifically T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song
of J. Alfred Prufrock." Conn and Darcy work together on an
English assignment based on this poem.
Y'all, I have a deep and abiding love
for Prufrock. There was no way I was going to give up on the book
after that sad little man showed up. Plus, the writing style was
lyrical without being flowery and I was enjoying it.
I'm really glad I kept reading, because
after a slow start, the book started to grow on me. The
characters
started to grow on me. Darcy is a pretty angsty girl, and hard to
warm up to at first. But she is also fiercely loyal to her friends,
passionate about her art, and determined to find out about her past
and figure out exactly who she is.
Conn turns out to be a more complicated
character than we first believe, too. As Darcy's best friend Lily
puts it, "You two sound like a pair of misfit toys who are going
to end up breaking each other."
The secondary characters had some of
the best lines, especially Jims, who serves up the comic relief. And
every now and then, there would be a funny sentence that made me
smile. Like this one by Darcy's friend Raphael, talking about Conn:
"And, speaking of putting on acts, how's Mr. I Wear A Cologne
and It's Called
Mysterious?"
There are some things that did nag at
me a bit. The way the Great Chicago Fire caused the dimensional rift
between our world and the reality in which Conn and the Shades live
is never really explained.
Another thing that didn't exactly ring
true for me was the outcome of the big climatic scene. It was a
little Breaking Dawn-ish, since the climax was pretty anticlimactic.
However, I do appreciate Rutkoski giving us characters who solved
problems with words and not violence.
And since I only read books without
strong language and sexual content, I also liked that this was a
"clean" read.
If you go into the book ready to push
past the slow start and not expecting lots of wham-bang action Shade
vs. human action (there's not any), I think you'll enjoy this book.
It's a well-written novel with a vividly described setting and
characters discovering who they are, where they came from, what they
want, and what matters most in their lives.
There was a lot to enjoy, and despite
my initial misgivings, I found myself thinking about the book for
days after I finished it. For me, that's always the sign of a
worthwhile read.
About the author:
Marie Rutkoski is the author of the YA novel The Shadow Society, about
a girl who discovers that she’s not human and that her kind are
terrorists in an alternate world where the Great Chicago Fire never
happened. The Shadow Society will be published October 30, 2012. Marie has also written the children’s fantasy series The Kronos Chronicles, including The Cabinet of Wonders, The Celestial Globeand The Jewel of the Kalderash. The Cabinet of Wonders,
her debut novel, was named an Indie Next Kids’ List Great Read and a
Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, among other honors.
Rutkoski grew up in Bolingbrook, Illinois (a suburb of
Chicago), as the oldest of four children. She attended the University of
Iowa. After graduating, she lived in Moscow and Prague. Upon receiving
her Ph.D. from Harvard University, she held dual appointments as a
lecturer there in both English and American Literature and Language, and
History and Literature. Rutkoski is currently a professor at Brooklyn
College, where she teaches Renaissance Drama, children’s literature and
creative writing. She usually lives in New York City with her husband
and two sons, but she and her family are now living in Paris for the
2012-2013 academic year.
About the guest reviewer, Sarah:
Sarah reviews YA novels at the cleverly titled Sarah's YA Blog. She
freely admits she doesn't quite fit the profile of a "young" reader, and
the "adult" part is also questionable. :) She lives in Arkansas and
chases/chauffers/wrangles her kids, and is always looking for the next
great book to obsess over.
