Review: Shadows

Title: Shadows
Author: Paula Weston
Series: The Rephiam
Volume: 1
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal
Release Date: September 10, 2013
Goodreads

A Quick Introduction: Gaby's been having nightmares. She would attribute them to the trauma of her twin's death, except that they're not about the car crash he was killed and Gaby herself was badly injured. They're about a nightclub, and in it she kills things that don't exist, with people she's never met. Never met, that is, until one of them turns up in the town where she's living with her best friend to tell her that she's not who she thinks she is.

Out of Ten: 6/10

Review at a Glance:  This quartet opening was quite a fast read, though not one with characters or plot that I was entirely invested in.

Review: This was a fairly easy read, though one that I wasn't entirely engaged in. Gaby was a fairly sharp-edged character, likely partly due to the fact that she's still dealing with the loss of her brother. She's generally fairly harsh and callous, which didn't bother me, though I did have a hard time connecting with her. I just couldn't quite get into her head, though I generally could follow why she acted as she did, at least to a degree. I don't really have that much of an opinion on the other characters, they all seem fairly simple at this point. I'm not sure what it was, but I just found if difficult to care much about any of the characters.

My lack of connection to the characters may have been a part of the reason that the romance didn't end up interesting me. It felt like there was an imbalance, with the action lagging to allow for the romance, such as is was, to develop (or not develop...). It stilted the flow of the novel slightly in places, to the end that the two plot lines felt separate, rather than cohesive.

In some parts of the book were difficult to follow, in that I didn't understand how certain characters had certain information... parts of it seemed too convenient, which pushed the limits of my suspension of disbelief a little. This is the first book in a quartet, so the plot is just starting to build this book, and it does feel like its building up to something, rather than having a standalone plot. It is more set-up than it was plot.

Overall, I am giving the second book in this series a try, though I'm still uncertain if I'll end up finishing the series. We'll see if it picks up for me or not.