Shadows

By Robin McKinley

A compelling and inventive novel set in a world where science and magic are at odds, by Robin McKinley, the Newbery-winning author of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, as well as the classic fantasy titles Beauty, Chalice, Spindle’s End, Pegasus and Sunshine
 
Maggie knows something’s off about Val, her mom’s new husband. Val is from Oldworld, where they still use magic, and he won’t have any tech in his office-shed behind the house. But—more importantly—what are the huge, horrible, jagged, jumpy shadows following him around? Magic is illegal in Newworld, which is all about science. The magic-carrying gene was disabled two generations ago, back when Maggie’s great-grandmother was a notable magician. But that was a long time ago.
 
Then Maggie meets Casimir, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. He’s from Oldworld too—and he’s heard of Maggie’s stepfather, and has a guess about Val’s shadows. Maggie doesn’t want to know . . . until earth-shattering events force her to depend on Val and his shadows. And perhaps on her own heritage.
 
In this dangerously unstable world, neither science nor magic has the necessary answers, but a truce between them is impossible. And although the two are supposed to be incompatible, Maggie’s discovering the world will need both to survive.

“A delightful read.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“Bound to appeal.”
—Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
• Release date: Sep 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9780698135376

Robin McKinley

Robin McKinley has won various awards and citations for her writing, including the Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown, a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for Sunshine. Her other books include the New York Times bestseller Spindle’s End; two novel-length retellings of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and Rose Daughter; Deerskin, another novel-length fairy-tale retelling, of Charles Perrault’s Donkeyskin; and a retelling of the Robin Hood legend, The Outlaws of Sherwood. She lives with her husband, the English writer Peter Dickinson; three dogs (two hellhounds and one hell terror); an 1897 Steinway upright; and far too many rosebushes.

Book preview

to Diana Wynne Jones

CHAPTER 1

THE STORY STARTS LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A fairy tale: I hated my stepfather.

It’s usually stepmothers in fairy tales. Well, equal time for stepfathers.

I almost don’t know why I hated Val so much. He was short and hairy and didn’t know how to wear Newworld clothes and spoke with a funny accent and used a lot of really dreeping words that nobody in Newworld had used in two hundred years. Have you ever heard anyone say ablutions? I didn’t think so. He looked like the kind of creepazoid you’d cross the street to avoid walking past too close to. And this guy who looks like a homeless crazydumb who’s about to start shouting about the evil magician who planted electrodes in his brain stands there smiling gently at my mother . . . and she laughs and puts her arm through his because she loves him. Uggh.

Maybe I hated him because she loved him, although I was pretty old for that kind of doolally. I’d turned seventeen by the time they got together, and my brother, Ran (short for Randal not Randolph), who wasn’t quite thirteen yet, thought he was wonderful. I don’t know what went wrong with me. It was like an evil magician had put electrodes in my brain.

Margaret Alastrina (everyone calls me Maggie, but the full lineup is way more effective if you want to shout), there’s no point in telling this story if you’re not going to be honest. Okay, okay, I do know why I couldn’t deal with Val. It was the shadows. But in Newworld, where we’re all about science and you stop reading fairy tales about the time you learn to read (which always seemed really unfair), being afraid of shadows was silly and pathetic. Even if there were a lot of them and they didn’t seem to be the shadow of anything. (And if they were, whatever it was had way too many legs.) So I hated him for making me silly and pathetic. That’s scientifically logical, isn’t it?

For a while Mom made a fuss about it and tried to get us—Val and me—to do things together, I guess because she couldn’t believe I wouldn’t like him if I got to know him better. You know the kind of thing. We did the grocery shopping—with him being as useless as it’s humanly possible to be and me having to explain everything; why he hadn’t starved to death before he met Mom I have no idea—and when I got my learner’s permit Mom was always Oh, take Val, I haven’t got time right now, which was probably true but it was also Mom trying to make us friends. (And honestly, he was a pretty good learner driver’s passenger. He never blew about dumb stuff—and he didn’t even get upset when I put the tiniest—the tiniest—dent in Mom’s fender because there was this really unnecessary knob on the side of one of those big metal anti-cobey boxes and I couldn’t see it because the front of the car was in the way. We got out and looked at it and I thought, My life is over, but all Val said was, I can bend that out again. Back into the driveway tonight so it’s on the other side and she’ll never know.)

Mom probably couldn’t believe what had happened to her daughter. I’d been this disgustingly sweet, cooperative kid, always worried about everyone else (this got worse after Ran was born. I am never having kids. Moms with new babies have no life), which is to say this dreary little dreep. What started giving me my own personality finally was when I got old enough to volunteer at the Orchard Animal Shelter. I was thrilled at being allowed to shovel critter crap and scrub bowls. The self-confidence issues of a nine-year-old can be pretty weird.

I’d wanted a dog since forever, but about six months after Dad died, and Mom was still trying to be extra-nice to Ran and me, especially because she was working about twenty-six hours a day and exhausted and miserable and cranky when we saw her at all, I told her I’d found my dog. So while she gave me the old a dog is a big responsibility lecture and reminded me with lots of Mom gestures and eye contact that she was working twenty-six hours a day and backup from her was a nonstarter, her heart wasn’t really in it. I had wanted almost every dog that came into the shelter because whatever it was it was a dog, but this time it was one of those your-eyes-meet-and-you-know-you’re-made-for-each-other things. (My friend Laura has them about every six months with a new boy.) Clare was saving him for me while I dealt with Mom (and Ran, although Ran is fine about most things including dogs as long as they’re not his problem). So we brought Mongo home. Mongo is short for mongrel—we don’t know anything about him; one of the Watchguard guys brought him to Clare—but he’s totally a border collie.

He was maybe five months old and already crazy, and you could guess that some ordinary family hadn’t been able to cope with a hairy attack squad caroming off the walls and trying to fetch pieces of furniture so somebody would throw them for him. Mom, even having folded on the subject of my dog, was a little worried about Mongo but Clare said I’d cope, which made me feel better than anything ever had in my life before, certainly anything since Dad died. Mongo is also really, really happy and cheerful and loving (as well as crazy) and he was totally a good idea and just what we needed.

But the point is, he was my dog. We had him because I wanted a dog. I had to walk him twice a day and feed him and brush him (way too much fur. If I’d realized, I might have tried to fall in love with something short-haired) and make sure his water bowl was clean and full and all that. Which in Mongo’s case included a lot of remedial training, starting with SIT. Sitting to have his lead put on, sitting before he was allowed out the door, sitting before he could jump in the car, sitting before his food bowl was put down—and the accidental swallowing of the hand holding the bowl is not allowed either. Sitting got him used to paying attention to me as something more than the hand that throws the stick and puts the food bowl on the floor. (And pets him. Mongo will lie still for as long as someone is petting him.) Then there was convincing him that eating sofa cushions wasn’t allowed, or baseboards or shoes or origami figures that happen to fall on the floor—he ate the best dragon I ever made and the fact that Takahiro made me a better one doesn’t change anything—and finding a more or less chew-proof dog bed before I spent my entire college fund replacing the ones that weren’t chew-proof enough. I thought teaching him the long down was going to kill us both, although possibly my attention span wasn’t up to it either.

But I did it. I did it all. He barely even ate newspapers or gloves or (empty) cereal boxes after the first six months with us. I was the kind of kid who did walk the dog every day. Twice. Just getting enough exercise was a big thing with Mongo.

Although having to walk the dog became my excuse for not doing stuff with my friends. I kind of stopped having friends after Dad died. Everybody but Jill. Jill hung on like . . . like a really good friend who’d had her parents split up two years before and was not going to lose anybody else. She used to come home with me after school and walk Mongo too. I am really lucky to have Jill, although I didn’t know it for a while. I didn’t feel lucky.

Dad died when I was ten and Ran was six, because this guy who got drunk the first night they let him out of jail for drunk driving came over the median strip on the highway in his double-muscle-macho car and killed him. The guy didn’t kill himself until the next time they let him out of jail and he ran into a tree, but that was too late for Dad. I think I was sweet for the next several years, after almost everyone else had turned into a teenager, because I was afraid that if I wasn’t really good maybe Mom would die too. I was young enough to believe that kind of thing, although when Ran kept asking me—especially when he hadn’t been good—I always said no, it was a stupid accident and Mom was really careful. She was really careful, but Dad had been really careful too; there just wasn’t a lot he could do about something the size of an army anti-cobey truck coming over the median strip at eighty miles an hour.

Mom dated a few other guys over the years, but not very many. I don’t have time, she said. Mom always had pictures of us on her desk. This would be cute except that even after she had pictures of us well past the rug-rat stage she kept the really loser baby ones. She worked five and a half days a week as the office manager for an accounting firm, which meant that she should have met lots of interesting men, because every grown-up has to do their taxes, but Tennel & Zeet didn’t have the right kind of clients. I know they didn’t have the right kind of clients because Val was one of them. Tennel & Zeet had a specialty in immigrants from the Slav Commonwealth so that’s probably why Val went to them.

Ran and I didn’t think a lot about it at first when she said she was bringing this new guy home. She did occasionally bring guys home—or, better, we’d all go to a restaurant: neutral ground, and somebody else cleaned up after—although she hadn’t in nearly a year, so whoever he was would be a little interesting for the novelty. But by the day he came I wanted to hide the salad or lay the tablecloth (yes, a real tablecloth and in the real dining room) facedown or something, just to break the circuit, as she went zinging around the kitchen like she was the most organized person in the world, which she isn’t. We had a joke, Ran and Mom and me, that she used up all her organization at work. But the way Mom was behaving was the first clue that Val might be more important than the other (few) guys we’d met, so I was probably already on the wrong channel with him when the doorbell rang.

Also I’d been thinking why were we having him over for dinner for this first meeting? I like having someone else doing the cooking—someone other than Mom (or me. Although quite sane people will come to dinner when I make my spaghetti sauce). Val didn’t have much money—Mom didn’t quite say this, but I figured it out. And she wanted to show him what a happy little family we were. Well, he could have cooked us dinner, couldn’t he? At his place.

So I was feeling kind of unplugged about Mom pretending we were supposed to believe it was no big deal about this Val person coming over. And when she sang out—and I mean sang, it was disgusting—for me to answer the door when the bell went, I think I was going to dislike him even if he was a billionaire with a private island big enough for a wild animal sanctuary and a really cute son who was just my type.

But when I opened the door . . .

It was like there was more than just Val there. As if he was twice the size of a human person, or there were two of him, or something. It was really dark out, in spite of the porch light, and at first I couldn’t see his face. I was frightened. I didn’t like being frightened. I’d been frightened about almost everything since Dad died.

And there was something wrong with Val being too big. In that first shock I don’t think I noticed there was something wrong with the darkness—it was February, it still got dark early, it was nearly seven p.m.—that it was shadows. If I’d noticed they wiggled I might have just slammed the door on him.

I am Val, he said in his funny voice, and stepped forward and I got my first eyeful of his clothes sense, which was pretty frightening all by itself. I stepped back like he was a big ugly cobey-unit goon with a zapper and I was a homeless loophead, and now in the light of the hall I could see him plainly, see that he was short and hairy as well as having a funny voice, and I’ve seen orangutans that wore clothes better. I didn’t recognize Val’s accent but that wasn’t surprising. The Slav Commonwealth is like ninety countries, some of them no bigger than your front yard, and every one of them has its own language.

He was smiling at me. It was a hopeful smile and I didn’t like it, because it meant this dinner was important to him too, and I’d already decided I didn’t like him. Or his big (wiggly) shadows.

The darkness, or whatever it was, seemed to retreat a little, or maybe press itself down nearer the floor where it wasn’t so obvious, as he stepped forward. I actually peered over his shoulder as if I was looking for someone, or maybe something, but I couldn’t see anything, although the nearest streetlight seemed farther away than usual. I looked back at him and I thought his smile had changed. He was looking at me too hard behind the smile. I thought of all those fairy tales where once you invite the evil magician over your threshold you’d had it. But I hadn’t invited him. He’d just come in, and I’d given way. Did that count?

Probably.

Hey. This is Newworld. We don’t have magicians in Newworld, evil or otherwise.

Mom’s in the kitchen, I said ungraciously, but he didn’t seem to notice the ungracious. His face lit up at the mention of Mom. As he took another step forward he made a tiny bow and waved me to go ahead of him, which I should have thought was cute but I didn’t maybe partly because there was something freaky about the shadow of his arm against the wall—a sudden sharp ragged line along the line of his forearm, and then just as suddenly it collapsed into the proper arm shadow like it had realized I could see it. I tried not to stare but by now I was totally creeped out and couldn’t wait to get away from him—but getting away meant leading him farther into my house, farther away from the door. My great-grandmom’s quilt hangs on the other, long wall by the front door, and I put my hand on it, either like I was dizzy or like it was going to protect me. Protect us. I had a moment when I thought, I’m not going to let this shadow man near my family: I’m going to tell him to go away.

Too late. The evil magician was already over the threshold. And the quilt was just a quilt.

I don’t guess all of this took more than a minute. It was a long minute. It was long enough for Mom to call, Vaaaaaal? Yuck. When we went into the kitchen Mom’s face was so bright I could hardly stand to look at it. Even Mongo liked him, although Mongo likes everybody. (Also Mongo was so thrilled with himself for staying in the dog bed till I’d released him that nothing was going to blow his mood.) Then Ran found out that Val would listen to him about cars—cars were Ran’s biggest thing—and that was pretty much it for the rest of the evening. Ran talked and Val and Mom made shiny electric eyes at each other.

Once we were all sitting down and eating (Mom had made her chicken, apples, and cream, which usually only came out on birthdays) I was watching the shadows on the wall behind Val’s chair. They were too lively and there were way too many of them. One or another of them always seemed about to turn into something I could recognize—a Komodo dragon or an alligator or a ninety-tentacled space alien. No, I was imagining it (especially the space alien. Sixty tentacles, tops). I hoped I was imagining it.

I looked at Mongo, who was fast asleep against the manic wall, paws twitching faintly and looking utterly relaxed. That made one of us.

After Val left Mom came and put her arm around me. Are you okay, honey? You were awfully quiet at dinner. I didn’t say anything and she laughed a little and said, Well, you can’t get a word in when Ran’s on full current, can you?

I could hear her not asking what I’d thought of Val. Before I blurted out something I’d be sorry for later I said, Where is he from again? Ors—Orsk—

Orzaskan, Mom said carefully. I have to keep looking it up.

And why’d he leave? I said as neutrally as possible.

I felt her shrug. The latest bunch of government gizmoheads don’t like academics, and he’s a professor of philosophy.

Physwiz—the physics of the worlds—is sometimes called philosophy. I hoped not in this case. And it doesn’t get much more academic than philosophy, I said into Mom’s silence. Or as loopheaded as physwiz. But I’d never heard of even the most out-there creepo collecting shadows.

She turned me around to face her. Maggie . . . I’m sorry he made a bad first impression on you. I don’t suppose you want to tell me what went wrong?

That his shadow is too big for him and there was something out of a bad science-fiction movie on the wall behind his chair at dinner? Not to mention that shirt. I shook my head.

Well, give him a chance, won’t you? she said.

Sure, I said.

She stared at me a few seconds longer. I could see the thought bubble forming over her head. It said teenagers. I smiled, and she relaxed a little and hugged me again, and moved off toward the stairs. You’ll lock up after you take Mongo out, she said, which was Mom-speak for It’s a school night, go to bed.

Mom, I said. Mongo had appeared at the sound of his name, but I waited till Mom had gone upstairs and I saw the bathroom light go on. Then I put Mongo’s lead on like we were going out as normal. Our dining room used to be a garage. Now it’s a dining room, Mom’s office, and a coat closet. I paused at the dining room door and then flung it open and flicked the light switch on as if I was expecting to catch somebody at something.

There wasn’t anything there except a (mostly cleared-off) table and some chairs and the corner cupboards with Mom’s china and stuff, and a piece of Ran’s parka sticking out through the closed closet door. The space alien(s) had gone home with Val. I guessed that was something.

Mongo and I had a nice little cruise around the block while he examined every inch of the sidewalk, fences, trees, patches of grass, and the Watchguard call box on the corner and chose precisely the right six(teen) spots to pee. I locked the door behind us when we came in again, took his lead off—and went back to check that I had locked the door. I always lock the door. I didn’t need to check. I spent a minute staring at the floor, like I was watching for jagged-edged, wiggly shadows to eel under the locked door. For the minute I was watching they didn’t. Then I shut Mongo in the kitchen, where the official dog bed was (plus 5,214 dog toys so he didn’t have any excuses to eat chair legs), and went to bed myself. And dreamed about alligators and space aliens. But that’s my problem, right?

• • •

You already know how chapter one has to end: they got married. I told myself he was not my stepfather, maybe he was married to my mother but that doesn’t make him my anything father. (He even tried to adopt us. Ran said yes and I said no. I managed not to say you must be dreeping kidding, no bugsucking way.)

I was Mom’s attendant and I’d like to say I got a great dress out of it but we were broke. Actually it was a pretty good dress because Mom’s sister Gwenda brought their own mom and grandmom’s party dresses from her attic and told me I could pick one. Gwenda lives in their old family house, way upstate from us in Station. I like vintage as well as the next teenage girl with cash flow problems and wearing dead people’s clothes isn’t usually a problem but there was something a bit buggie about these. Maybe because I knew Great-grandmom had been a magician. It was Grandmom’s generation that got gene-chopped, and they’re still checking in case they missed something. You get scanned at birth and then you get another scan and they give you a blood test some time during adolescence—with girls you’re supposed to go back when you start menstruating. The scan made me pretty sick the second time, which is supposed to mean that I would have had the gene if it hadn’t been chopped. It must have been really, really rough for Great-grandmom and her daughters.

Or maybe I wasn’t hot-wired by the dresses because I was dreading the wedding. By heroic self-control I didn’t choose the black one with the grey lace and sequins although it was seriously electric, and picked out a pink and maroon one instead that looked a little less like the wicked fairy who’s come to curse the princess. Jill was helping me and pulled out a beigey-cream one that would have made me look like I had died (speaking of dead people) but looked terrific against her dark skin.

"Hey, babe, utsukushii, I said, which is Japanese for beautiful." Mostly we insulted each other with the (approximately ten) Japanese words we’d looked up on the webnet to annoy Takahiro with. We only knew a couple of nice ones.

Gwenda laughed. Okay, you have that one, she said to Jill. Jill by special perk was invited to the wedding to keep me company; other than her it was just Mom’s family and friends. (Val didn’t seem to have any friends, and if he had any family they were still back in Whatsit-kan.) And you can keep the black one too, she said to me. None of this has been out of the attic in thirty years. Nobody’s going to miss it.

Gwenda herself was wearing this sharp emerald suit for the wedding, totally looking like the no-nonsense lawyer that she was, even if she was as broke as the rest of the family because she specialized in defending people accused of practicing magic. (I’m not talking about big evil-magician-with-electrodes stuff. Just a charm to cure warts or make hair grow, if it worked, the government would come after you.) She usually got them off (she usually managed to prove it was science really) and almost none of them could afford to pay her.

The problem with the green of her suit was the way the shadows seemed to like it. Bugsuck. Also shimatta. (Japanese for damn.) They liked my second aunt, Rhonwyn’s, blue dress too, but not as much as the green. Jill was busy twirling and maybe they didn’t like cream and beige and taupe. The pink and maroon in my dress was in panels, plus this lacy pink shawl Jill loaned me to hide that my dress didn’t quite fit (I’m hopeless with needle and thread) and I was telling myself they liked solid colors, although it was probably just that I couldn’t bear thinking of them crawling on me or my best friend. Although I had the feeling there was one particular shadow that was kind of following me around. It writhed along the ground after me. Uggh. If I’m not imagining you, Go. Away.

The shadows were particularly bad that day. I’d figured out by then that the shadows were worse when Val was tensed up about something. He was tense about having dinner at our house that first time. He was majorly tense on his wedding day.

Jill cried. Well, somebody should cry at a wedding, and I wasn’t going to. What bothered me the most—besides Val’s shadows—was that I was beginning to forget what having Dad around had been like. I remembered the loneliness, how tiny and broken our world felt when there were suddenly only three of us. Sometimes it was like there was only two of us because at first, before Tennel & Zeet hired her, Mom was working three part-time jobs and got home late every night. Our poky little suburban three-bedroom house felt enormous when I was the oldest person in it. I still remembered feeling tiny and broken. But I was forgetting Dad.

And now my world was full of shadows.

I was having some of these thoughts for about the six-hundredth time that day when Val turned around and caught my eye and smiled. I wasn’t anything like ready at that moment to be nice to my mother’s new husband and it must have showed on my face—and then Val’s shadows went crazy and I stared straight over his shoulder and I probably twitched or something and I may have taken a step back. Val went so still that that was as eye-catching as the stuff on the wall behind him and I looked back at him and he was staring at me and he wasn’t smiling.

And then Jill came up and put her arms around me and her head on my shoulder and bawled, and I could put my arms around her and my cheek against her hair and not look at Val although I didn’t like turning my back on him (and the shadows) either. But what was he going to do with twenty-five other people in the house? Turn me into a space alien or an alligator? Call his creepy minions and have them carry me away to his secret lair?

The woman who said the legal words over them had come to our house and we had the reception there too. It was just food, there wasn’t an official wedding cake, but there were several cakes, and one of Mom’s friends had made a cake in a fancy pan with a hole in the middle and Gwenda put a little vase with some white roses out of Mom’s garden in the hole, so that’s the one they cut like a wedding cake while almost everybody but me took pictures. Mom did look gorgeous in her gold dress, and Rhonwyn had made her a sort of cap of yellow roses that should have looked totally woopy but was fantastic. (There’s a fourth sister—Blanchefleur—but no one’s seen her in like twenty years, and a half brother, Darnel, but he’s in a cobey unit, and on the wedding day was off being deployed somewhere saving Newworld from gaps in reality.) But Val was there all the time too, wearing a suit that fit him about as well as a horse blanket on a goat (his trouser legs were rolled up. He couldn’t have got them shortened for his wedding?) and he was pretty much glued to Mom’s side so that kind of ruined photo ops for me.

Mongo was totally thrilled by all the people (in Mongo’s opinion we didn’t entertain enough) and since these were nearly all friends of his too no one said anything about getting long black and white hairs on their good clothes. But after I stopped the third person trying to give him a piece of cake—sugar is so not a good idea with a dog who’s mental to begin with—I hooked my hand through his collar and dragged him out. He was all stiff-legged and resisting on the way to the kitchen door but as soon as I got him over the sill into the back yard he collapsed and turned into a sad hairy forlorn dog blob. I looked at him and laughed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed. He raised his head and thumped his tail hopefully.

No, I said. "You may not go back in there and cruise for handouts." But I did go back indoors myself long enough to grab a handful of dog biscuits and started running him through all of his tricks. He learned stuff really fast if there were biscuits involved but he forgot really fast too so you had to keep reminding him. I heard the kitchen door open as Mongo was dancing on his hind legs. I looked around warily but it was only Jill.

Your mom says to stop playing with your dog and come in and talk to people, she said. Her eyelids were still swollen from crying. I wanted to know why she was crying at my mom’s wedding, but I wasn’t ready to ask her yet.

In a minute, I said. Go stand in the middle of the lawn and be herded. She rolled her eyes but she went. It would be really useful if I could teach Mongo to fetch critters rather than just balls and sticks and towels with knots in them. Clare’s shelter had been a farm in her dad’s day before the town ate most of it, but she still owned several acres, and when someone wanted to adopt a wether or a goat or a pony you could guarantee they’d all be at the farthest end of their field. So I was trying to teach Mongo to herd. Jill did what I told her while I semaphored at Mongo. Uggh. Well, we’d get it one day. Maybe. I’d better watch the Teach Your Dog Herding vids again.

Jill walked back to me with Mongo at her heels. He was very likely to follow her around anyway, but when he came to me and sat hopefully, I gave him his last dog biscuit. First rule: If your dog doesn’t do what you want, it’s your fault.

I watched Jill look around our back yard. It was a corner lot, so it was pretty big. It was big

Reviews for Shadows

[cgalvin-774225 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I LOVE Robin McKinley but this one started a bit slow for me. The last 3rd of the book was lovely.

[jennybeast · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took me a while to get into this book -- something about the intensity of Mckinley's world building can be disorienting, and this book deliberately so. Once I was in, though, there was no putting it down -- there's so many interesting aspects: origami, magic, inter-dimensionality, critters, boys, and family dynamics. Most of all, Maggie herself, authentically 17, more than a little bit confused and swept away by events, and yet deeply kind in a way that makes all her attempts to deal and her fears and her powers and her hopes deeply compelling.

[tikimoof · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Maggie read a lot like a teenager, which felt accurate, but really, really annoying sometimes. I was still totally hooked until the end, but the stream of consciousness stuff just didn't yield results as good as Sunshine's.

[fence_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ever since I read Sunshine I’ve been a fan of McKinley. I loved that book, and I got a lot of echoes of that in this one. The alternate, not-quite-our world. The magic mixed with the mundane.
Shadows is set in an alternate world, one where the Newworld has eradicated all magic, and the risks they feel it brings. Magical families have been gene-spliced and teenagers are regularly tested to ensure that no magic user might slip through. This is a world where the word magician is a bad word. Not like Oldworld, where Maggie’s stepfather is from, there magic and magicians are everywhere.

And from the outset Maggie does not like her stepfather. On their first meeting he creeped her out with the shadows that seemed to loom around him. Has he brought something with him? And if so how did he manage to cross the border?

The female first person central character. The importance of family.

But at the same time it is a very different book, and it probably isn’t fair to compare the two at all. But if you did enjoy Sunshine then you might want to give this a go.

Back to Shadows.

I’d have to say that it took me a while to get into it and its world. I think that it is a book that rewards the time you spend with it. I was reading in quick snatches at first, and I think my experience of the book then suffered, but once I got a bit of time and really got stuck into it I adored it. I love Maggie as a character. She is a teenage girl, one who has lost her father, and who doesn’t like the new man in her mother’s life. All very real and easy to understand. And even before the magic begins to make its presence felt her story was an engrossing one for me.

Also there are dogs and dog care, and origami and paper folding. And boys who may be a romantic interest, or may not. And don’t worry, it never turns into a “love will save the world” sort of story. It is a thread in the plot, not the whole shebang.

But it isn’t as good as Sunshine1 It almost spends too long getting to know Maggie and her dog. And when the magic element does kick off it seems a little rushed. So not a perfect book, but one that I’m glad I read.

[elenaj-147457 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book a lot, although it took me 30 or 40 pages to get into it. There is a slightly annoying tendency to heavy-handed repetition, but otherwise the characters are interesting and well-drawn, and the story is engaging and fun.

[treehorse-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

So, this felt like Sunshine-lite and not in a good way. There was little plot and the protagonist was forgettable. None of the side-characters were memorable. Hell, the most memorable thing about the book was the protagonist's algebra book.

also: I am tired of werewolves. Can the urban fantasy world move on, please?

[cindywho-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

McKinley let's us know that she's channeling Diana Wynne Jones with her dedication. It's like a trip to Witch World with the hidden magics and the dread of authority. There are also many critters and origami.

[mizpurplest · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While I did really enjoy this book, I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy it as much as I do most of her books. I felt like I'd heard the narrator's voice already in some of her other recent books, and the story wasn't fleshed out as much as I would have liked to really get a sense of the characters. However, still a really fun read.

[herenya_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shadows is about 17 year old Maggie, who hates her new stepfather. More specifically, she hates his shadows.

Ostensibly Shadows has more in common with Sunshine and Dragonhaven than McKinley other novels: it is an urban fantasy set in a world that is a lot like our world but clearly isn't our world; it's told in the first-person by a narrator prone to tangents and digressions; and the narrator, upon discovering new information about herself and her world, is confronted with an exhausting and occasionally terrifying learning curve.

These are all things I like. I like the world-building and the way it doesn't explain a lot of things yet leaves me convinced that Maggie's world exists beyond the borders of Maggie's story. I enjoy the rambly first-person, and the way this allows one to really get to know Maggie and her history with the important people (and animals!) in her life.

In other respects, Shadows has McKinley's fingerprints all over it. There are clearly rules to magic but using magic is seen to be an intuitive thing, because the story is told from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what those rules are. The heroine is very determined, and prepared to work with a single-minded focus when it comes to the things she's passionate about. Animals are important - not just to Maggie, who has a dog and volunteers at an animal shelter, but to the plot. And they're full of personality, distinct and convincing.

I really enjoyed this. Fall into the story and gobble it up in one go enjoyment. I like how it begins as a story about a teenager who is deeply uncomfortable with her new stepfather, and how it explores that and shifts to become a story about how NewWorld (where Maggie lives) views magic. I like Maggie's friendships with Jill and Takahiro. I love Mongo, Maggie's crazy border collie mongrel.

So we brought Mongo home [...] He was maybe five months old and already crazy, and you could guess that some ordinary family hadn't been able to cope with a hairy attack squad carooming off the walls and trying to fetch pieces of furniture so someone would throw them for him.

[courtney_anne-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

What is happening here? This book was nightmarishly bad. It was incoherent and did not flow at all. The slang and colloquialisms were way over-the-top, as was her wannabe "cool high school kid" lingo. Some of my favorite books were penned by McKinley, but this book is absolute crap. I couldn't even finish (because I couldn't understand what the hell was happening, and it was stupidly slow and boring). This is the second release by McKinley in recent years (the other being Pegasus) that is cringe-worthy and not worth the price of the paper it's printed on. Yikes.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lovely. It is, perhaps, a trifle more YA than most McKinleys - it's actually set in a high school. Or at least the protagonist is in high school and dealing with the problems that brings (like oversized textbooks. Which turn out to be extremely useful, in a slantwise fashion...). And closer to urban fantasy/contemporary fantasy than most of her books. A fascinating new slant on the usual McKinley story - girl finds herself in a situation where her old rules don't work, and new abilities are showing up and making her the solution to all the problems. I like Maggie, and Mongo. Funny thing - somehow from the excerpts I'd read I'd decided Mongo was called that because he was huge, Marmaduke-style. When he's identified as a border collie I felt my brain tipping as it tried to change gears... The excerpts really didn't prepare me for this story, though I'm not sure why. I was pretty sure the shadows were the Enemy, less sure about Val's part, and expected the story to be about her repelling the Invasion of Evil all by herself (plus her dog). Yeah, not. Great story, much more realistic than my imagination had laid out, and it's more about social change than Repelling Evil... I'd love to see these people/this world again (no, no, Robin, I'm not asking for a series! Just...a short story or two? Maybe?), though there's no real loose ends left dangling. Just - the story ends with them working on changing everything, and I'd love to see how it shakes out. Especially for those who didn't have a problem with how it was before...if there are any. There certainly do seem to be a lot of "one of us"es!

[pwaites_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you’ve read any other Robin McKinley books, Shadows will be very familiar. An animal loving girl goes to have her mystical climatic encounter that draws upon her unexplored magical heritage, all the while accompanied by a practical herd of random animals.

Shadows is written in the stream of conscious, first person style that McKinley employees for both Sunshine and Dragonhaven. Maggie, the main character, lives in Newworld, where magic is illegal and science rules. When her mom marries Val, who’s from the magical Oldworld, Maggie isn’t happy – Val has strange shadows that move independently of him. This about sums up the first hundred pages of the book. However, the summery hints at things that don’t really appear. See the last paragraph of it: “In this dangerously unstable world, neither science nor magic has the necessary answers, but a truce between them is impossible. And although the two are supposed to be incompatible, Maggie’s discovering the world will need both to survive.”

“Ahh,” I think, “this book will be focused around the balance between science and magic. That will play a large role in the ending, and new discoveries about it will be made.” This never happens.

I’m not really sure what does happen. The entire book is very meandering with crucial elements going unexplained or unexplored and with notable plot holes and logic fails popping up all over the place. While Sunshine and Dragonhaven had some of the same meandering quality, it worked for them because of an interesting narrator and more structure to the plot. Maggie… well, I never felt like I got a grasp on her. I’d say that it’s probably because her life’s pretty boring. She’s just the normal teenager going to high school. Yes, she happens to be the chosen one, but that element isn’t explored much. Besides, you need something other than “chosen one” to make you an interesting character.

I’m not really sure how the world set up works either. Maggie lives in Newworld (probably the US), which has banned magic and prefers technology. Maggie’s stepfather comes from Oldworld (probably Europe), which is all about magic. There’s also Farworld (totally Asia) and Southworld (no idea). So, are world’s continents? Why do we divide them up like this? Are all continents homogeneous in their approach to magic? Then what the heck’s up with Farworld and Southworld? Besides throwing the names out there and the “Newworld’s science, Oldworld’s magic” almost nothing is mentioned.

At the start of this review, I was complaining that this felt like a collection of all the “standard Robin McKinley elements.” Unexplored magical heritage – Sunshine. Random herd of animals – Spindle’s End and The Hero and the Crown. Animal loving – pretty much every book. Mystical climatic encounter – every single book (I’m serious here).

A couple pages in, Maggie starts talking about her dog. “Ahh, of course she has an animal companion,” I think, “It’s a Robin McKinley book.” By the end, when she goes to have her mystical climatic encounter that draws upon her magical heritage, she’s accompanied by six dogs and a cat. Oh, and some sheep and rabbits show up around then.

I don’t think I’d be as annoyed if it was just the one dog. One dog, that’s reasonable. Six? Really? She’s already done that with Deerskin, and the dogs were actually relevant in that book. For Shadows, they were just sort of tagging along. Supposedly animals somehow prevent the amydar (some sort of vague radar that the army is using for vague purposes, possibly to search for magic usage, also vaguely defined) from finding them or causing headaches. Or maybe both. This was never explained. It was just sort of presented as a reason for dragging a whole pack of dogs along with her.

The back of the book says, “Maggie meets Casimir, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen.” I probably should I used this as a clue that there was going to be a lot of teen romance in this one, but it’s a Robin McKinley book. She doesn’t normally have a large focus on the romance elements. But Shadows has the mandatory love triangle, and guess what? One of them’s a werewolf!

To be fair, the love triangle wasn’t too odorous and did get tied up reasonably before the end. But, still. Casually thrown in werewolves?

On an upbeat, I did love the magical algebra textbook.

I’m not sure I can recommend this one. I have a friend who adores it, and she’s usually the pickiest reader around, so Shadows can’t be all bad. If you’re new to Robin McKinley, I’d suggest The Hero and the Crown or Sunshine instead. If you’re already a fan and bent on reading Shadows, all I can say is try to get it from the library instead of buying a copy. In all likelihood, this won’t be one you’ll want to reread.

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

[tierneyc-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shadows. By Robin McKinley. Nancy Paulsen Books / Penguin Young Readers Group. 2013. 356 pages. $18.99 hbk. 978-0399165795. Grades 6-12.

In the “Newworld,” magic has (supposedly) been “gene-chopped” away – but the living shadows that follow Maggie’s stepfather around hint at something going on underneath the surface. Through Maggie’s point of view, McKinley deftly blends typical teenage concerns (crushes! algebra! a totally uncool stepdad!) with a pseudo-scientific world in which magic is actually bursting at the seams (spoiler alert: by the end of the novel, Maggie has discovered that most of the people in her life have some capacity for magic). Some elements are integrated less successfully than others (the often-unexplained appearance of various foreign words in Maggie’s lexicon feels more alienating than innovative), but ultimately Maggie is a relatable, empowering female fantasy character in a magical world whose slight differences from our own are well fleshed-out and explained via plot demonstration rather than pure narratorial description. Though the novel, in its tone and subject matter, is rather different from much of McKinley’s other fantasy work, it is a modern take on the genre that does not feel as though it were missing the mark or trying too hard. Middle and high schoolers looking to ease their way into the fantasy genre would do well to start with Shadows.

[librarycin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Maggie lives in Newworld, where magic isn't allowed; it's all about science now. When Maggie's mother marries Val, someone from Oldworld, Maggie has a bad feeling about him from the start. He has weird “shadows” that seem to follow him (though this doesn't seem to bother anyone else).

I really enjoyed this. It especially picked up about halfway through, when Maggie found out more about Val and his shadows. Maggie also seems to have an affinity for animals, and she volunteers at the local animal shelter, so I loved that about the book! I'm not sure if there will be a sequel or not, but with the way it ended, I think it's open for one. I'd read the next one if there will be one.

[reading_fox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As ever with Mckinley's writing (that if which I've read at least) it leaves you wanting more. This is a very enjoyable YA adventure for girls with dogs, but too little is explained, the coincidences slightly too heavy, and overall it would have been better as a longer novel with more detail and less hectic pace.

Maggie is an ordinary teenage girl in Newworld (Distinct from Oldworld where magic still runs deep, far world of the orient and all the other factions of a familiar earth). Newworld has embraced science and technology as a way of keeping the demons (alternate universes?) known as cobies from breaking through and disrupting life. SO she's finishing college can't stand algebra and seriously attracted to the new server at the local pizza place. She cares for animals, has a mongrel collie dog and helps at the local animal shelter, but doesn't like her slightly scary stepdad who's only recently moved in. Somehow he seems to have extra shadows around him. But Newworld doesn't have any magic, and fiercely guards it's borders so even if he's from Oldworld it can't be that. And then within the space of three days it all goes completely haywire, a Cobie does break through, shadows seem the least of her worries, she discovers new talents, her friends new talents, and goes on a rescue mission and the book ends.

I told you it would have made a better novel at a slower pace. There's a lot thrown in without much justifcation, Taks comes from japan and folds origami, which when blended with her algebra equations seems to have special powers, But there's no rhyme or reason for this, or the Japanese background. Likewise Casmir the pizza sever, coming from Oldworld, knowing her stepdad, and generally being awesomely capable without more a than a few words of dialogue. He didn't really work as a character because there wasn't the space. There's no tension between Maggie, her best friend Jill and the two blokes, everything just falls into place. The whole plot just falls into place. Which is kind of typical of a YA novel, but not what I was expecting from the complexities that McKinley can rise to - or that the world inspired.

The writing is however seamless and captivating. Maggie if no-one else shines all the way through and manages a little bit of angst at the tricky decisions before just getting on with it. The world is clever and I'd have liked to know a lot more about it, when and why it split etc, the basis for the magic that can be done, and how/where the Shadows come from. Also of course it ends on a bit of a anticipatory note as if there were more to come. But Mckinley doesn't write sequels, so we're left pondering what the future will be for all of them. At least the dogs know it will involve petting and face licking. Not being much of dog person this does somewhat put me off caring too much.

[ninelarks-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was like a teen version of Sunshine.
Which was a little disappointing actually.

As usual, per Robin McKinley, it's a rambly type of book that goes off unnecessary tangents with unnecessary details and strange usage of parenthesis. I was really annoyed at the first 50 pages because of how many random parentheses were used. (It's like you couldn't get through a single paragraph without a random comment bracketed by these babies.) But then the plot settled in and the writing seemed to smooth out as more things occurred and it was all good.

I found the plotline interesting, except I could see so many parallels to Sunshine. I did love the concept of shadows. The world was a little fascinating. I could almost see it as part of Sunshine's world after another 200 years or so.

Similarly the main character is way too similar to Sunshine.
Mother remarries. She discovers she has magic much later than usual. She does things no one thought possible. They are both vegetarian. I think it's because McKinley puts a lot of herself into her main characters so they start having a bit of the same tone. But it's a little jarring because characters shouldn't be that similar...

And then when you step back and think about it, all she seemed to do was cry and fold origami. And kiss boys too, I guess.
She felt way too tween for me. And honestly, she just got together with the boy and all of a sudden he's on her every thought so she just cries? That annoyed me.

But I just really love Robin McKinley's boy scenes. Something about the way she writes them makes me shiver and tense in anticipation.

Other things I liked: the algebra book and its rebinding; the herding of rabbits; origami; Jill as the best friend; and of course the animals.

Despite my complaints, I still liked the book (minus the first 50 pages).

Two and half stars rounded up. Ah, I really do have a soft spot for Robin McKinley.
Recommended for those who read Robin McKinley. Her other books are better though. You shouldn't start here if this is your first foray into her worlds. Try "The Blue Sword" and "The Hero and the Crown" first.

[mirandalg14 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thanks to Netgalley.com and Penguin Young Readers Group for allowing me access to this title.

3.75 stars. Deductions for the repeated annoying use of "dead battery" and for they horrendously long chapters.

I was surprised by the twist in the characterization of the shadows and that while you would originally have thought them evil, it turned out that they were not. I also liked the growth in the relationship between Maggie and Val. Not all step-parents are bad. Sometimes you just have to get used to the situation and get to know the person a little better to understand where they are coming from.

I found this one to be more along the writing style of Pegasus than Beauty or some of the other retellings. It was a little slower and more descriptive in the circumstances, but not horribly so.

I would recommend this to fans of Robin McKinley and anyone who enjoys a realistic fantasy.

[mikerhode · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A young adult novel aimed at females, but I'm secure in my manhood and enjoyed it.

[angelina0justice · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I really want to give this book more stars because it had great potential. But sadly I can't. There were some fun concepts and lovable characters. It is a good story, but it is poorly delivered. I'm not entirely sure the problems with this story originated with McKinley. I haven't read much by her, so I can't jugde fairly.

Despite any idiosyncrasies the author may have, the editing team should have, and could have, done a better job. There were problems with spelling, typos and grammar. Many of these should have been caught by spell check. The rest should have been flagged by editors.

I'm okay with a run on sentence, if is stream of consciousness or colloquialism. But such a device should not bring the story to a halt. If the reader has to double or triple back to make sense out of a segment, it becomes bad writing/editing.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One thing I love about Ms. McKinley's books is that she creates such compelling worlds. And that she expects her readers to be smart enough to figure things out without a lot of explanation. Maggie is great and Taks is even better and while the chances of any follow up books are slim, still I can imagine the adventures they might have.

[amberwitch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The narrative voice is similar to Dragonhaven, although slightly more unobtrusive.
The plot reminded med a grittier and less humorous version of a Diana Wynne Jones novel.
Not McKinleys strongest story.

[foggidawn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Maggie has stepfather problems -- namely, her new stepfather always seems to be accompanied by threatening, roiling shadows. In a world where technology has been developed to replace and subdue magic, the shadows seem unsettlingly like something that shouldn't be allowed to exist any more. Or maybe Maggie just isn't crazy about the idea of her mother getting remarried. As magic seems to strengthen its grip on Maggie's technology-focused world, Maggie learns that many things are not what they seem. Also dogs, boys, and a likeable Algebra textbook. (I know, that last one seems a little bit out there, but remember, it's fantasy.)

In some ways, this is very different from what McKinley has written before -- more teenage angst, and a setting that feels more like the future than the past -- but in other ways it is trademark McKinley. The dogs, for instance, and the way the magic works at the climax of the book, that I find hard to pin down but understandable in context. Also the rambling, which is one of McKinley's charms but may be irritating to some readers who don't want to go wandering off into backstory in the middle of a paragraph of dialogue. This isn't going to be up with BEAUTY and THE HERO AND THE CROWN as a new favorite McKinley, but it's sitting comfortably in the midrange.

[readinggeek451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In a lot of ways, this is reminiscent of Diana Wynne Jones. But the dogs are pure McKinley.

I enjoyed it, but I don't think I'll buy it to re-read.

[bluesalamanders · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Maggie lives in a world where magic and technology both exist. Where she lives is very anti-magic and pro-technology, but their technology is having increasing difficulty handling some of the dangers of their world. Maggie discovers she has some unusual abilities and learns to use them, through a combination of guesswork and help from others.

First the bad: there is a distinctly anti-science and -technology feel to this story that I didn't care for. Also, the end of Shadows makes it feel like the first book in a series but (knowing McKinley's style) it is unlikely that there will be sequels.

Shadows is set in a world a few steps sideways from Sunshine. There are obvious parallels, with the dangers of (and for) magicians, the magic-sniffing technology, and the government agencies going a little overboard in trying to protect the public from the magical menace. Maggie is another of McKinley's reluctant heroines, but this time she's backed up by a cadre of friends as well as various animal companions and other...things. One thing I really liked was how McKinley managed to make a textbook into a character that I cared about, kind of like the Really Useful Book in the movie Mirrormask.

Overall I enjoyed Shadows, but - mainly due to the anti-science feeling that permeates the story - it is unlikely to become one of my favorites.

[bookswithbite · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Taking a chance in reading a new authors work, I found this plot to be somewhat confusing.

Plot: This story begins in the shoes of Maggie, a young teenager who is not happy that her new stepfather is not what he seems. At first, this plot confused me cause I thought that Maggie was making up thing about her new stepdad since she didn’t really like the idea of her mom getting married. Furthermore into the story, the plot later reveals that there are many worlds in the world that this author is writing in. After getting that little bit of information, I found it a bit easier to understand the plot.

Friendship/Love: Once it is revealed about the Oldworld, there are a few characters who are more than what they seemed. Throughout the story, they help Maggie and her family through the struggle of governmental battle. Meeting Casmir, helps Maggie look at things different than being biased all the time. Casmir is good for Maggie cause he himself harbor’s secrets that in the end, help Maggie in who she is.

Ending: I sort of knew this part was going to happen being that well…when reading a story like this with magic and power struggle it always seems to come out this way. Maggie’s mom has been keeping certain things secret. A secret that will change Maggie. I enjoyed the dramatic ending cause it gave the story a completion.

Shadows is good story that follows magic and power. The chucky part of Maggie’s angst does throw off the reader a bit. Utilizing great detailing towards the middle of the story, the reader is then immerse in a whole new world. Nicely written with great evolving characters, Shadows is good

[bakersfieldbarbara · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Humor, romance, magic and adventure. How much more can the author, Robin McKinley, put into her latest novel, Shadows?
Fantasies are not my favorite genre, but I got hooked on McKinley's Sunshine, an urban fantasy/vampire story set in an alternative universe. Shadows starts out with a powerful statement, "I hate my stepfather." Try putting a book down after reading that as a first sentence.Stepfather, Val, is from Old World,where they still use magic and he is followed by shadows. Why? Magic is illegal in New World
where Maggie lives, and thus begins the conflict. A great book, and one I can completely recommend to those who want to follow a Newberry-winning author of The Hero and Sunshine. You won't be disappointed if this is your type of book. If not, this is a good one to start with.