Review: SHADE by Jeri Smith-Ready

The SHADE series by Jeri Smith-Ready is one of my absolute favorites of ALL TIME, and I'd recommend it to anyone. And Jeri herself is one of my favorite authors, and one of the coolest, awesomest, most fantastical people I "know" (know being in quotes because I've only ever talked to her online ;D).


I've already reviewed the third book in her SHADE trilogy, SHINE, but I've decided I'll go back and review SHADE and SHIFT as well :D

Love ties them together. Death can't tear them apart.

Best. Birthday. Ever. At least, it was supposed to be. With Logan's band playing a critical gig and Aura's plans for an intimate after-party, Aura knows it will be the most memorable night of her boyfriend's life. She never thought it would be his last.
Logan's sudden death leaves Aura devastated. He's gone.

Well, sort of.

Like everyone born after the Shift, Aura can see and hear ghosts. Aura's always found her ability annoying--but not with Logan's violet-hued spirit still hanging around. Because Dead Logan is almost as real as ever. Almost.

It doesn't help that Aura's new friend Zachary is so understanding--and so very alive. His support means more to Aura than she cares to admit.

As Aura's relationships with the dead and the living grow ever complicated, so do her feelings for Logan and Zachary. Each holds a piece of Aura's heart...and clues to the secret of the Shift.

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I may have mentioned this before in other reviews, but I absolutely LOVE books with worlds that are our world--yet not. 


See, on one hand, you have books like Mortal Instruments and Hex Hall, where there's magic and other supernatural aspects, but they're hidden from "normal" people, and the world, on the outside, looks the same. And then you have fantasy books like Under the Never Sky or Hunger Games where everything is different. Then there's books like this--like SHADE, or like White Cat by Holly Black, where there's something that makes our world different, but it's matter-of-fact to the book's world. In this world, everyone born after a certain point in time--the Shift--can see ghosts. 


Aura's one of those people, which is both a curse--because, hello, the last thing a teenage girl needs is to be pestered by ghosts who refuse to move on--and a blessing--especially when her boyfriend, Logan dies...and hangs around as a ghost.


Intellectually, Aura knows that Logan's dead--that he isn't coming back. But when he's there with her, it can get hard to remember that he can't still be her boyfriend... Death doesn't kill love, after all. 


But then there's Zachary, the new guy at school and Aura's science partner. He's smart, sweet, and Scottish. And, of course, he's alive. 


SHADE is full of mystery, romance, and heartbreak, as well as humor and hilarity, and is that brilliant type of story that keeps you reading and reading, and thinking back on the story long after you finish :)


SHADE obviously, totally gets <*><*><*><*><*>


(:D)
~Mag