Wednesday, March 18, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Shadowhouse Fall by Daniel Jose Older




Shadowhouse Fall is the second in Daniel Jose Older's Shadowshaper Cypher trilogy and the sequel to Shadowshaper (Reviewed Here).  Shadowshaper was a YA Urban Fantasy series set in modern day Brooklyn and was truly great at featuring a cast of POC teenagers dealing with modern day issues such as gentrification and racism and those attempting to appropriate minorities' cultural histories, through both their regular and fantastical lives.  It also featured a strong cast of characters who were easy to root for, particularly, in its lead Sierra.  Add in the fact that it had one of the better audiobook readers I've experienced, and I was always interested in seeing how the sequel would turn out.

And Shadowhouse Fall is a strong follow-up, again using both its fantastical elements and real world portrayal of Brooklyn to deal with real world issues as it continues to build up its world and characters.  This time around, police violence against minority communities and the oppressive atmosphere of the security state towards anyone who isn't a white man is a major part of the book, and the book showcases this severe problem with our current world very effectively.  And the actual fantastical elements are done well, even if the plot contains similar issues to those of the first book in its choppiness.  I'll be back for the series' conclusion, and soon.

Note: As I noted above, I've been reading this series in audiobook format, and the audiobook reader is extremely good, so I definitely recommend this book in that format.  If I misspell any names though, that's the reason for it in this review.


----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Months have passed since Sierra defeated Wick and took her place as head of a new group of Shadowshapers, with her friends and mother the first of the new group.  But as she and her friends are practicing their powers one day in the park, she is approached by a school classmate with a strange card - the Hound of Light - and warned that the "Deck of Worlds" is in play.  Soon, Sierra finds herself in the crosshairs once again of the mysterious Sorrows - the beings that had originally been behind Wick - and now her friends are in danger as well.

But the danger isn't only from the forces of the Sorrows, because Brooklyn is on a knife's edge, with security restricted even in school and police officers everywhere looking for any excuse to mess with - or worse - people of color like Sierra and her friends.  As Sierra and her friends desperately try to figure out what's going on, and deal with the Sorrows and their Hound of Light, they will find themselves facing forces that barely think of them as people and with little regards for their lives....and even if they do manage to figure out the true power of the Deck of Worlds, not everyone may be able to make it out in one piece......
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Shadowhouse Fall continues the story in Shadowshaper just a few months later after the events of that book, and returns to Sierra and her friends' lives in Brooklyn.  Once again, the book is written from Sierra's (third person) point of view, as she attempts to figure things out - after all she's a high school girl confused while trying to deal with normal things like boys she's interested in and family who can be incredibly overbearing at times.  And then of course there's the fantastical problems Sierra has that an ordinary person does not: dealing with her increasing magical powers, the spirits she sees, and the threats that now face her and her friends because of them.  So the narrative is very frequently dealing with Sierra being unsure of what to do, because well....she is, and it works really well.

And then of course there are the issues that Sierra and her friends face as people of color in Brooklyn, which are very real and very dangerous, especially when it comes to how society and police deal with people like them.  This is a major part of this book - as the group finds themselves having to get past obnoxious security guards and checkpoints just to get into school, find themselves getting referred to police just for opening up to a teacher, and dealing with police brutality randomly on the street.  The book blends its fantastical elements together with this real life problem, and the combination feels so damn real that it hurts to read...as it should.

This is all helped by the characters being really well done here, both old and new, to build a cast that is strong even apart from Sierra.  Developed old characters like Benny, Tee, and Izzy are built up and expanded upon and old characters with less development last book like Juan and Jerome can built a bit more this time around.  And new characters like Sierra's new love interest Anthony and a pair of the older Shadowshapers are really nice unique additions.  Together with the antagonists, who without spoiling continue to be fantasy threats that take the forms that represent real life issues that we also see in this book, it's a truly great cast.

Mind you, not everything here works.  For the second straight book, the plot is often choppy with Sierra jumping at things without a second thought when it seems like a normal person would start questioning them first - so when the Deck of Worlds is mentioned, the question isn't "What is the Deck of Worlds?" but Sierra jumps right into trying to work with the Deck.  It's a repeated thing in this book, where things move seemingly again because the plot wants it to more than in a way that feels natural.  Another example of this is that one character from the past book, Nydia the librarian who studies past looks at the spirits, is absent from the first part of this book even though she seems like the natural person to turn to to get information - an absence that forces Sierra to turn to newer characters and move the plot along.  These are minor issues, although noticeable, so they just are a bit annoying and not deal breakers in any way.

So yeah, I look forward to listening to the conclusion of this trilogy, which just came out, and is also available in my elibrary.  I can't wait to see how Older will confront everything next, especially with an ending like this one which leaves a lot of things up in the air (but is satisfying).


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