I really enjoyed Dust for its creativity, beauty, and fun, even while handling some deep subjects with great tact and sensitivity. While I was lookingI really enjoyed Dust for its creativity, beauty, and fun, even while handling some deep subjects with great tact and sensitivity. While I was looking forward to Shadow to find out how the story ends, I was also aware from the hints in Dust that Shadow would be heavier. In the time between my reading of book 1 and book 2, I also saw the author and publisher acknowledge in various live streams, podcasts, etc, that Shadow was significantly darker than Dust due to the heavier themes. (Kara even said it gave one of her beta readers a nightmare.) So, my excitement was tempered by slight nervousness. As someone who's not a huge fan of dark books, if I didn't trust Kara Swanson to handle such themes redemptively, I might have skipped Shadow as it's not the first time a later book in a series was too much for me, but I do trust her and decided to give it a whack anyway, even preparing to have to listen to it on audio despite owning the hardcover, because I can often handle intense books better in audio format than in physical copy. This is probably because I listen to audiobooks during the day rather than right before bed, and I can speed audio up past things that would trigger anxiety if I linger on them too long.
So, that's pretty much what happened. I started out reading my physical copy and ended up switching to audio probably about 5 chapters in because it was already clearly too emotionally intense for bedtime reading. But I want to be very clear that this doesn't mean I wasn't liking it, I just was trying to use my knowledge of my own consistent reactions to give myself the best chance to handle the intensity of this book in the healthiest way possible. And, it generally worked.
This story was indeed intense, and even scary and pretty violent a couple of times, but it also had elements that were deep, moving, and beautiful. Kara really dealt head-on with some difficult stuff, but dealt with it with such grace and truth I never feared the characters or myself as the reader being left to wallow in a place of hopeless or despondency. There was always that balance of hope, always light to find on the other side of the darkness. Healing after pain. Joy after sorrow.
There was one violent bit near the end that was a smidgen of an anxiety trigger for me, and I wish it had not been described as graphically as it was. I cranked the audiobook up to 3.5x to get past it, and that's the only reason I didn't get more bothered by it than I was because that got me through it so fast I didn't have time to dwell on it too much.
BUT THEN THE ENDING. Wow. The ending was so redemptive, so touching, so effervescently beautiful, it pulled me right out of that dark spot and sent my heart soaring into the skies with Peter and Clair. Truly, I got misty-eyed with the triumph and joy of it. And then getting to see (view spoiler)[ Neverland restored bigger and better than before, and all the healing, and Peter and Claire working together to make it a safe place of respite for children to rest from difficult times before going back home renewed (hide spoiler)] was absolute perfection. This duology could not have ended in a more beautiful and satisfying way.
So, my overall conclusion is that, while this book is pretty intense, and really rather dark at times, the light in it shines brilliantly brighter. While it wasn't as "fun" as Dust, and wasn't meant to be, it was still touching and enjoyable to me. I'm only taking off one star for the last bit of violence that was a lot more bloody and described than I personally would have preferred and is something I will skip entirely if and when I reread this duology in the future. But I felt the story was overall incredibly well balanced and well crafted by a beautiful heart, and I'm glad to have endured the intense times to get to the light on the other side.
Content Advisory: Due to some heavy themes, emotional intensity, and quite a bit of violence, I recommend this book for ages 16 and up. Those in that age range who are sensitive, please read the following advisory to make sure this book is the right match for you.
Romance/sexual: Nothing truly sexual. Peter and Claire kiss a few times. The kisses are described, but in sweet terms, not sensual, and not in extreme detail.
A boy has an obvious crush on a girl and there are several mentions of blushing.
Violence: Many threats of harm against many characters. Many instances of people getting cuts/bites/scrapes/etc that bleed. Mention, but no description of the stitching up of wounds.
Someone gets hit over the head with the handle of a knife. Mention of pain.
Mention of poisoning.
Various people get burned by ashen pixie dust, but the damage isn't described in detail.
Someone is magically drowned. The description thereof is not gross, but is very emotionally intense. Some description of the dead body. Again, not gross, but sad.
Someone gets stabbed (non-fatally) and there is moderate description of blood.
One deadly stabbing includes moderate mention of blood.
A throat slitting includes rather graphic description, described from the perspective of the dying person.
Language: Some uses of "heck". Mentions of "choice words" and wanting to "curse out" people.
Spiritual: Just like in the first book, there are mentions of "The Ever One" who created everything and has a purpose for everyone. It's made clear that learning the Ever One's purpose is integral to multiple people healing from major traumas.
As we know because of Peter Pan's shadow, in Neverland, shadows can be a living entity separate from the person they belong to. One person actually, through their own unwise choices, ends up basically "possessed" by their own shadow. But (view spoiler)[ their shadow gets defeated, and the person healed by the end. (hide spoiler)]
Magic: As this is a story about Peter Pan and Neverland, there are plenty of mentions of magic. Two characters are the product of a marriage between a siren and a pixie. One has more siren-like powers whereas the other has more pixie-like powers. Many, many mentions and uses of pixie dust.
There are mentions of a certain character having dabbled in "dark magic" but it's all in reference to things that happened off the page. There are no spells or descriptions of *how* this person did what they did. It's only stated that it was used and it's made obvious that it's a very bad, destructive thing.
Other: Young or sensitive readers may find certain fantasy elements and descriptions in the story intense and frightening. One character in particular has a scary physical description that gets scarier over the course of the story. ...more
Well, that was definitely super pirate-y! I honestly haven't read a ton of pirate books and only partially like stuff like Pirates of the Caribbean, bWell, that was definitely super pirate-y! I honestly haven't read a ton of pirate books and only partially like stuff like Pirates of the Caribbean, but I'm always up for a good adventure story and pirate stories seem to always offer that. Also, after having tried to read a certain, popular, pirate book last year *cough*Fable*cough* only to get bored and DNF it, I was hoping this Oathbound might be better.
The first thing that grabbed me was the characters. They're all distinct, with a certain vivacity to many of them that I liked.
I thought the main conflicts were interesting. Emme has an unspecified "illness" that she needed to find a cure for, and that intertwined with Arne's goal of finding a treasure at the same island as the mythical cure.
The world building I think was my favorite thing. So many creative creatures and lands, which of course, contributed to the adventure. And the concept of "oathbinding" was an interesting element. I was wondering at first why that was the title of the book, but I realized why by the end.
The ending was a little bit of a cliffhanger, but not in an annoying way. It mainly just left me wanting to know what will happen next.
There wasn't a lot that I outright disliked except that there was quite a lot of violence (nothing that triggered anxiety, thankfully, but still a large quantity of violence.) There were also certain darker elements that, again, didn't "bother" me, but were a little reminiscent of the darker things in Pirates of the Caribbean (mainly, Emme thinking she saw her dead mother, whose description was a bit like the zombie pirates of PotC), which were my least favorite parts of those movies. And, of course, pirates don't always do all the most morally correct things. These pirates *did* have better morals than many, but still not totally great. Also, I think I ended up liking Emme and Arne better as friends than a romantic couple, though I'm glad at the same time that their romance remains pretty innocent.
This also seems to be one of Enclave's books that (unless I missed something, or something changes in the second book) is a good story written by a Christian vs. being a Christian fiction book. I don't necessarily mind that, but sometimes I do wish that there would be some way to know that that's the case ahead of time so I know whether to be looking for such themes or not? Otherwise, I'm looking for Christian themes and am just a smidgen sad when I don't find any. (This is even while being glad that it's cleaner, and still has more redemptive themes than a book written by a secular author.) *shrug*
Anyway, I did generally enjoy the adventure, the mystery, and characters of this story, enough so that I do want to know what happens in the second book. It's not necessarily a 5 star read for me, though, since, again, while I like a pirate adventure, it's also not one of my absolute favorite things ever, for the reasons mentioned above. I think I'm going with 3.5 stars rounded to 4 until such time as Goodreads gives us half stars.
As a side-note, I'll also say that I liked Victoria McCombs' writing style enough that I'll probably check out her other books at some point and see if I might like them better, since I believe they're about things other than pirates.
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