4/5 Stars

THIS IS BALLER

I went into it knowing nothing but the title and in the first few chapters - yes, even that prologue - assumed that it'd be a standard orphaned-teen-finds-self deal, with some crime circles for drama.

I WAS SO WRONG.

Point off because the first third is slow and because I want more background history. Otherwise, NICE

I finished this book in one day. And it was basically a love-sad-cry fest. I loved Conn and Darcy's love hate relationship. And I though that the story was beautiful and thrilling. I wish there was a sequel where the IBI comes back after her and Orion comes back too, and Conn is the only one who can protect her!!! DX

The Shadow Society wasn't the best book I've ever read, but it wasn't bad, either. I had hoped it would be better, of course (I hope that every book is really good, obviously) and it let me down a little. Although, it did improve a lot between the beginning and the end.

This book has extremely fast pacing, which made everything that happened seem really rushed. I don't know if it's the pacing alone, or the style of the writing which makes it read quickly, but I felt like everything was rushed. Part of the problem was that the scenes didn't really fit one after another. They jumped around in time (sometimes even making reference to an earlier event, and then throwing is into that earlier event) and there was a lot of summary between the scenes. That rushed feeling is what made the Darcy/Conn (and Darcy/Orion) stuff seem like insta-love.

One of the other problems (which affected the pacing) was also one of the things that had make me want to read the book, which was disappointing. The fact that it's a stand-alone drew me to it, but I think that's something that made the story (and the relationships) so rushed.

About the writing technique--which I didn't love, but I also didn't hate--there were a few times where it really bothered me. There are things you're allowed to do once in a book, but if you do them again they seem like a gimmicky space-filler, and I noticed a few of those. Things like spending a whole paragraph listing off types of food, or the repeating a word three times thing. (I hate, hate, hate that)

The two biggest problems I had with the book, though, we're the romance and the lack of answers.

The romance was awful. I didn't feel anything for Conn and I felt less than that for Orion. Let's start with Conn, he was always weird and he seemed to be the love interest that is interested in the main girl for almost no reason at all. I don't like those. What reason was there for him to like her? And then we learned what it was, and that only made it worse. He was basically seducing her so he could kidnap her (oh, but he was just doing his job! Well, that's not good enough) Plus--on the topic of his job--how old is he? 17? 18? 25? He's supposed to be some kind of super agent, but he's high school age. That doesn't work for me. There is no way he'd become that good at that job after only a few years.

Then there was Orion, who is barely call a love-interest. He likes her, but she obviously doesn't like him. So he's just there to make her seem... What... Better? More desirable? Less realistic? I'll go with the third one.

Then there was all the questions I had. I liked the plot (even if it didn't make total sense to me) because it was original. And there was an attempt made to explain it all, but I just felt like it wasn't enough. There seemed to be a lot of plot holes, and very poor world-building. So, alternate Chicago; dimensional split during the Great Chicago Fire... That was basically all we got. What are Shades (maybe that was explained--but if it was it wasn't very noticeable)? Why do they always use magnetic power in Conn's world? Why don't more Shades go into the Alter--where people don't know they exist and they are treated like anyone else?

It didn't feel like the events that happened in the book happened because of any sort of natural progression. It felt like they happened because Rutoski needed them to happen, so she made them happen, even though they didn't seem to fit together quite right.

In the end, I was glad it was a stand-alone. I didn't mind it, but I'm not sure I would enjoy having to read anything else from this world/set of characters.

I would haven given it 4stars if the world building was not so clumsy. I really enjoyed the writing in the first half of the story...and then everything just got choppy.

Has some good plot twists, has some original material and a good group of sidekick friends. The romance is... fine, but not all that believable. Darcy is pretty great and I particularly like that her superhero-like powers are not related to her main talents (art). I don't know that I'd give this the top honors for best new YA that it seems to be getting, but it was a perfectly solid YA paranormal romance.

I love Marie Rutkoski so much. Her characters are great, and her writing is just absolutely beautiful to read. 4.5 stars.

3.5 Stars but rounding up.

Alright, the rating I'm giving this one is going to be mostly based on my enjoyment of it, because this book had quite a few plot holes and the ending was way too neatly packed in a nice big red bow. You might be asking how I can like a book with such a too perfect ending and so many plot holes? Well the answer is the characters. They were all so incredibly well done! I loved every single one of them. They were all so unique and alive, even the bad guys. As I have mentioned before, characters play a big role for me, which is why this is getting the rating that it is. The characters were what truly made this book. The MC, Darcy was amazing! She obviously had her flaws, but seriously Darcy is how I like most of my MCs, all the crap she went through and look at her now, still living a full life, and she could think for herself and take control of her situation and she was smart, not some clueless, naive girl.

The plot was very interesting, but it wasn't really fleshed out. For example, Darcy's age should have been 20, yet she thought she was 17/18 (she is a junior in high school but they never addressed this issue, so I don't know what kind of math they were doing. Also they never really mentioned Conn's age either that annoyed me a bit, I like knowing my character's ages.. Then there is of course the Shades themselves, how does it work? They never mentioned they had super strength, just called them "warriors". What's their history? Then there is the whole dimensions thing. They did briefly talk about this, like 1 paragraph, but I think it should have played a bigger role. If just the Chicago Fire made a whole other dimension, what did WWI and WWII cause? And my biggest question is, what the hell happened to the rest of the world?! They only focused on Chicago and it was like they were an island, all isolated and no one from the outside came in. I just don't get how nobody else was having the same problems? I mean couldn't the Shades just move or whatever? So yes, this book had quite a bit of flaws, but I still enjoyed it a lot. The characters really shined through.

Graded By: Poshdeluxe
Cover Story: Montell Jordan
BFF Charm: Make It Rain
Swoonworthy Scale: 6
Talky Talk: Straight Up
Bonus Factors: World Building, Alternate Universe
Relationship Status: Hot Date

Read the full book report here.