Review: Shadows by Paula Weston

What: Shadows (The Rephaim #1) by Paula Weston

Who: Text Publishing

When: July 2nd 2012

How: A copy of this novel was provided by Text Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

It’s almost a year since Gaby Winters was in the car crash that killed her twin brother, Jude. Her body has healed in the sunshine of Pandanus Beach, but her grief is raw and constant. It doesn’t help that every night in her dreams she kills demons and other hell-spawn.

And then Rafa comes to town. Not only does he look exactly like the guy who’s been appearing in Gaby’s dreams—he claims a history with her brother that makes no sense. Gaby is forced to accept that what she thought she knew about herself and her life is only a shadow of the truth—and that the truth is more likely to be found in the shadows of her nightmares.

Who is Rafa? Who are the Rephaim? And most importantly, who can she trust?

Fast-paced and gripping, Shadows, the first book in the Rephaim series.

Shadows was a good read.

The book follows Gabriella, or Gaby as she is known, as she comes to terms with the death of her twin brother, Jude. And then she meets Rafa, a stranger who seems to know more about her past than she does. And I guess that’s where all the stuff hits the fan.

For some reason I couldn’t really fall in love with any of the characters. I didn’t particularly warm to Gaby herself, and I didn’t find much endearing about Rafa. Sure, he had some sass, and he was good looking, but I couldn’t really grasp at the relationship between the two. I was left wanting more. There wasn’t a lot in the way of relationship development between Gaby and Rafa, and there was so much room for it.

The secondary characters were interesting enough, but I felt like they kind of faded away. Maggie didn’t have a lot of depth to her, and whilst it was made clear that Gaby and Maggie were best friends, I couldn’t really see that at all. There wasn’t a lot of information given about how they came to be best friends, or what kind of things they do together. It just felt a little superfluous, which is sad. I love reading about friendships that reflect those that one has in real life. I thought that Maggie and Gaby’s relationship almost reached that level, but lacked the background, as I mentioned earlier.

The Rephaim themselves were intriguing. I think there are a lot of angel books coming out, and every author has their take on the story. I liked the uniqueness of Weston’s spin on the angels and the nephilim – it made the ever popular realm of angels and the such feel quite new and refreshing.

All in all, not much occurred in the book, and I felt a little unsatisfied when I read the last page. As a reader, I have a basic understanding of who and what the Rephaim are, and what their relationship to Gaby is; but there wasn’t any depth to the information. I feel like I need it all to be explained to me a little more. I don’t know why Nathaniel has gathered all the Rephaim together, or why Gaby and Jude went off on their adventure. I understand it is necessary to keep the reader guessing, but a lot of the conversations were one sided, and I was left wondering what the heck was going on half the time.

I know it seems like I am critiquing this novel to no end, but it’s a sign that I actually paid attention to everything I read, and that I wanted more BECAUSE I liked what I was reading. I am critiquing this novel because I believed that it had a whole heap of potential but did not quite live up to it. I wanted to fall in love, but there were things preventing it.

One thing I really did like about Shadows was the language used. There was a whole bunch of profanities, and it was great! Gaby is nineteen years old. Nineteen year olds swear. Young adults swear. It’s just a way of life. And I think the accurate language of the age group within young adult novels is never really represented. The worst it usually gets is ‘crap’, or maybe a ‘shit’ here or there. But that’s just not really representative of how young adults talk. Sure, they may not swear like sailors, but I have never met someone in my age group that doesn’t throw in a swear in a conversation. So, yeah, I really liked that.

I will continue to read The Rephaim series because I did enjoy reading Shadows, and I think the story has a lot of growth to undergo. And, of course, I want to see how everything plays out.

© 2014, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.