Shadowshaper Review

Okay, I’m a little late to the party on this one, but boy, did I love it. I borrowed the audiobook, read by the always spellbinding Anika Noni Rose, and I highly recommend it if you can get your hands (er, ears) on it.

This popped up on my Goodreads timeline a month into the pandemic, so I requested the ebook from the library. It wasn’t until it arrived that I realized it was actually an audiobook. I don’t think I’ve listened to a book since grade school, so I was a little reluctant to get started, but it was gripping from the first chapter.

Shadowshaper came out in 2015, the first book in the Shadowshaper Cypher (the most recent came out in January). It touches on gentrification, police brutality, discrimination, sexism, and general white people nonsense amidst a stunning urban fantasy background, rife with spirits, magic, and street art.

The teenage protagonist, Sierra Santiago, is an Afro-Puerto Rican painter, who’s horrified to find the murals of Brooklyn not only beginning to fade but crying painted tears (so cool???). After she’s attacked by a living corpse, she’s thrust into a family legacy of “shadowshaping,” using art to contact and reanimate spirits. As a terrifying monster starts hunting the current generation of shadowshapers, Sierra and her classmate Robbie have to delve into their art and heritage to save everything, and everyone, they love.

Pretty much daily, I tell my partner I miss NYC, but this is a window straight into the city. Daniel José Older has written a love letter to Brooklyn, and even if you’ve never seen Sierra’s neighborhood in the flesh, you can’t help but fall in love too.

Sierra is a realistic teen, with insecurities and blind spots, but she’s also got an edge to her that made it totally believable when she stepped up to fight for her friends (who I also adored), family, and neighborhood. I loved how she/the book related to music. Lyrics are vital to the climax of the story, and I find they’re so tricky to get right in text, but boy, is it phenomenally done.

Also, a tattoo jumping off someone’s body to fight zombies? That is the sickest s**t I’ve ever read.

I give the second Book In My Basket 4/5 stars. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.