The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, this will be my first review in months, and I’m glad that it’s this book, because it’s one of the better books I’ve read recently.

In brief, this book tells the story about Nora, who one days finds one of her best friend, Chris, dead, and her other best friend, Adriane, who is also Chris’ girlfriend, catatonic. Her own boyfriend, Max, is missing, and is a suspect for the murder of Chris. Nora has to track Max down and find out what happened that night, and who really killed Chris.

The story is more complicated than that, however, as Nora, Chris, and Max were all working with a professor to decipher a 400-year-old book, and apparently there were some secrets in that book that some secret society would do anything to possess.

This book was categorized under the Young Adult genre, but I felt that it is a lot more sophisticated than most YA novels. There’s a lot more depth to the novel and the characters too, and I found myself really liking and sympathizing with most of them. The plot was really interesting, though a little bit slow at times.

There were some parts that were kind of unrealistic, like the fact that they were on a wanted list, but yet no one recognized them and turned them in even though they were moving about in public so much, and the fact that two different secret societies were looking for them, yet they always could go back to the same hotel and relax without worrying about anyone finding them.

The story did explain that the secret society wanted Nora and her friends to move about freely and “solve the puzzles” for them, so if we suspend our belief a little further, this explanations kind of works. It didn’t bother me too much though, and I still enjoyed the rest of the story. It was a great read, overall!