Article contributed by Yakira Goldsberry
Kara Swanson has a reputation for writing achingly beautiful and simultaneously sad stories, and her Dust duology is no different. The first book, Dust, follows the journey of Claire Kenton and her search for her younger brother, Connor. This search leads her to England, where she meets the last person she ever thought she’d run into, and the very person she hates—Peter Pan. All around her, the original characters from the tales of Neverland emerge, but this isn’t an innocent bedtime story anymore. For Peter Pan is growing up. In the end, Claire leaves Peter Pan behind, traveling with Captain Hook to Neverland to finally reunite with her brother. Only, Peter never told her that her brother is not who she remembers him to be.
Shadow picks up where Dust left off, with Claire arriving in Neverland as the prisoner of Captain Hook. Peter returns to Neverland with the help of Tiger Lily and he finds his precious island in turmoil. Almost all of the lost boys are teamed with Captain Hook, the sirens have turned from friends to enemies, and the island itself is falling apart.
Peter scrambles to try and find a way to put things back to the way they were. With every flip of the page, I was spellbound, hoping and wishing that Peter would succeed in turning Neverland back into the innocent place it had once been. But with each turn and plot twist, nothing about the story was going quite the way I expected. Instead of gaining the upper ground, Peter continues to lose and lose, and Claire suffers for every mistake the Peter makes. It’s an unfair trade and I can’t say that I wasn’t disappointed by it. Still, as the story progresses, their shaky friendship is slowly mended to the point that it becomes something more. While I did find the romance development to be a little quick, it wasn’t jarring and fit nicely with the storyline.
As the story progresses, it reveals the bare bones of Neverland, adding depth and backstory not in the original tale, giving Neverland an origin and not an innocent one either. With each reveal, it’s shown just how dark and twisted the island really was, and how it always had been. With these reveals comes the character of Paige. It was fairly obvious to me how she fit into Neverland’s origins, but I was never able to like her very much or feel any sort of sympathy for her. In fact, I found her to be an annoying character.
The plot itself wasn’t all that exciting. Things moved a bit too slow for my taste, and I’m not much of a fan of fast-paced stories. Nothing really seemed to happen until the end, and all of the previous events felt slightly disjointed. It clearly showcased a fight of light against dark, of hope against hopelessness, but it didn’t feel entirely thought out or planned. Despite that, I was still enthralled by the story, needing to know what happened next.
My connection to the characters wasn’t as strong as it could have been. Characters that I felt like I could trust turned into characters I loathed, and characters that I didn’t like at first ended up being one of my favourites. Character like Peter’s Shadow, Hook, and the Lost Boys. I just couldn’t get too emotionally attached to all of them. And then there was the puzzle of Connor Kenton himself. From the beginning, I wasn’t too terribly fond of him, and as the story progressed, I liked him less and less. But then at the end, when certain spoilery things were revealed, I felt a small piece of sympathy for him. But still, Swanson wrote him as such a fierce antagonist that I couldn’t really sympathize with him very well.
I think the ending of the book was my least favourite moment. Not just because the story was over, but after so much darkness, the happiness felt somewhat artificial. And yet, I enjoyed seeing characters receive second chances and watching the island rebloom with life and love.
While there are many elements that didn’t sit right with me, there were many more that did, so Shadow gets an 8/10. This book, and the duology, is perfect for fairytale retelling lovers, as well as those who enjoy melancholic stories that leave you yearning for more afterwards.
Shadow is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 13th 2021.
Will you be picking up Shadow? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Peter Pan has crash-landed back on Neverland. But this is not the island he remembers.
Desperate to rescue Claire and the fractured Lost Boys, Peter must unravel what truly tore his dreamland apart. But with each step, he is haunted by more of his own broken memories. Not even Pan himself is what he seems.
Claire Kenton is chained to a pirate ship, watching the wreckage of Neverland rocked by tempests. When she finally finds her brother, Connor is every bit as shattered as the island. Claire may have pixie dust flowing in her veins—but the light of Neverland is flickering dangerously close to going out forever.
To rescue Neverland from the inescapable shadow, the boy who never grew up and the girl who grew up too fast will have to sacrifice the only thing they have left: each other.
