Synopsis
A secret parallel universe. Shadow crossed lovers. Monsters in dark corners.
Every Thanksgiving Eve, reserved Jade Miller sees monsters in dark corners and hears voices in the shadows. She knows she’s different, even if her mother refuses to share the family secret. Nerdy Zander Stein has his whole life planned from top grades to law school, but he hasn’t prepared for Jade’s grasp on his heart.
When they learn that the government banishes criminals to a secret parallel universe, Jade believes her life as an average citizen is a lie. She struggles to understand where she belongs, but Zander is convinced they belong together. Whether Jade and Zander decide to join the banished criminals or help the authorities may cause families to split, relationships to break or Woodpine to come under siege.
Review
The book begins with Jade telling us about some shadows she sees through the corner of her eye or in the corners. No one else seems to see them so she starts thinking she’s crazy. At least until, in a crisis after chasing a shadow out of her classroom, Zanders followed her and seemed to also look at the floater, giving Jade hope of not being crazy.
Zanders is the nerdy boy in the class. He has excellent grades and a natural talent for debates. Talent that disappears every time he sees Jade and becomes unable to speak to her.
Zanders and Jade begin to approach but VERY slowly. Until Jade discovers that the truth of floating shadows is a parallel universe with which she’s directly related.
The book is actually written as a diary, but not only Jade’s. Many of the characters tell the story at some point, which makes it quite interesting.
While the book initially seems to be an ordinary love story, it is actually quite different in its development. The story happens almost only on Thanksgiving Eve, so each chapter picks up at least a year later. This leads to us going from a teenage story to a young adult story, which I didn’t expect, but which became quite interesting.
What I do find very funny is that everyone apparently sees the shadows and people usually ignore them, but Jade, her brother Bobby and her cousin Marcus suffer much of their life believing they are crazy instead talking to each other about it.
The paranormal part of the story felt quite irrelevant in the beginning. The shadows appeared, but they could all be crazy instead of there being something paranormal. However, near the end of the book it becomes more important and it’s likely that in the next installment it will become relevant.
For me this book deserves 4/5 stars because it is a different proposal and I enjoyed reading it quite a lot.
Bye bye ?
