Thursday, October 24, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older




Shadowshaper is a YA Urban Fantasy novel by Daniel Jose Older, set in modern day New York City, particularly Brooklyn.  I haven't loved the two prior books(Half Resurrection Blues, Star Wars: Last Shot) I've read by Older - I've found them functional novels that generally work, but unimpressive as a whole. Moreover, novels set in NYC tend to be hit or miss, with the books more often than not just using the setting as a generic setting, to my disappointment (as a local New Yorker).  Fortunately, Shadowshaper is the exception to that: quite clearly using its setting for specific reasons and showing a clear understanding of the areas involved, which I really appreciated.

Even more so, Shadowshaper uses this setting to tell a story of people from a "minority" community dealing with class and racial issues - such as gentrification and cultural appropriation - through a fantasy lens in a way that really works.  The story still has some of the same issues I had with the prior Older works - its pacing is very jumpy and it feels like characters jump in certain directions early just because the plot says they have to - but overall it comes together nicely to tell a story with some satisfying turns, some enjoyable characters, and an ending that has me looking forward to getting to the sequel eventually.

Note: I read this as an audiobook, and the audiobook reader is very good at handling the different voices and accents of the characters involved.  Definitely recommended in this format.


-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Sierra Santiago thought she was just in for a summer off from High School of hanging out with her friends and working on an art project: painting a mural on the walls of an abandoned tower marring the Brooklyn skyline of her area.  But when her stroke-ridden grandfather suddenly has a moment of coherence and tells her of "Shadowshapers" and to find an art-obssessed classmate named Robbie, Sierra can't help be curious of what exactly he's talking about.  Especially when the murals around the area seem to be fading, with a tear going down the eye of one of the men painted on the wall: a thing only Sierra can seem to see.

What Sierra will find however, is that the truth of her Puerto Rican heritage, and the culture that came with it, is far different and grander than she could've ever imagined: complete with an ancestral connection to the spirits of the dead.  And as Sierra finds out more and more of the truth, and of the legacy she's inherited, she will find that there are others out there who wish to take that heritage and twist it towards their own ends.  Others who would be willing to do anything, even kill, for the sake of taking her family's powers for their own twisted purposes......
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Shadowshaper is told entirely from Sierra's third person point of view, as the story progresses from beginning to end.  As I mentioned above the jump, the story takes place in Brooklyn, and a very recognizable Brooklyn for anyone who's familiar with the area, with each neighborhood having different attributes - although those distinctions are being muted by the effects of gentrification, which is a very prominent theme in this book.  Older uses this setting to make clear the real world parallels to the fantasy world he creates in this story - one in which the identities and cultural heritages of different groups are under threat from people  - particularly rich white interlopers - who would take them for their own without any respect.

Sierra is a pretty strong lead character for presenting this story, and its always easy to root for her and empathize with her: strong headed with a need to know the truth and a hatred for being kept in the dark, she's a pretty easy guide for the reader to learn more and more about how this fantasy world works as Sierra finds out about it herself as the story goes on.  Much of the rest of the cast is also pretty strong too, even as they tend to act more as sidekicks than main characters, whether it be love interest and mentor Robbie, Sierra's best friend Bennie, her other friends Tee and Izzy, her brother Juan, her mother Maria, or the librarian Nydia, all of whom have their own voices and personalities (the one exception is their friend Jerome, who just is kinda there and doesn't really have much of a personality).  It's a pretty great group of characters, helped by the audiobook by the way, which really differentiates their voices quite well.

And again, the book's plot and concepts work really well to deal with the real world issues of gentrification and cultural appropriation, even when you'd think they might get a bit silly - after all, the conflict in this book is driven by a Rich White Professor trying to steal the powers of a Puerto Rican family that are derived from their heritage, with the professor claiming repeatedly that he was just trying to help them.  It might seem a bit on the nose - but Older manages to write it extremely well so that it doesn't seem ridiculous and is instead kind of compelling, with Older also showing the real world impacts of these things by having Sierra wind up in gentrified and White areas of Brooklyn at times, where she isn't nearly as comfortable- for good reason.

The book is far from perfect - it has some serious pacing issues I think, particularly early on, as Sierra's relationships and actions jump forward REALLY quickly, to the point of breaking my suspension of disbelief a little: she's just way too willing to believe things early on in my opinion for example.  Perhaps a bigger example of this is her relationship with Robbie, where she goes from "he's kind of cute but I've had no interactions with him really" to really interested in him at an incredible pace, which is only made more glaring by her repeated notes to herself about how she tries to avoid getting too interested in boys.  It's like 0 to 60 all at once, and while I've seen relationships work like that, it didn't quite work for me here.

Still, overall it all works, and the ending is very satisfying, so I'd certainly recommend Shadowshaper at this point.  And there is a sequel, so I'll definitely be getting to that, eventually as well.



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