Book Reviews
Steven Aanes’ Shadows is a very well written novel that does a superb job describing so many of the anxieties, struggles, and hopes of adolescence. Each of the many characters is described extraordinarily well, the dialogue is realistic, and the conflicts are quite dramatic. The story is thoroughly engrossing and tough to put down.
The book is also to be commended for accurately portraying the complexity and ambiguity of all its many characters. Especially in this century when so many fictional characters are presented as cartoonishly all good or all evil, Shadows dares to convey how complex and conflicted people actually are. So, instead of characters shown to be all black or white, this novel reveals them to be many shades of gray, and therefore all the more intriguing.