The prose story was slow as molasses, the illustrated story quick as lightning. The two together were deeply unsatisfying. ( )

The prose story was slow as molasses, the illustrated story quick as lightning. The two together were deeply unsatisfying. ( )

“It was a dark and stormy night.” While that often-maligned cliché to bad writing is not the first sentence of In The Shadows, it is the beginning of this collaborative book by author Kiersten White and artist Jim Di Bartolo. The story actually begins with a picture of a dark and stormy night, lightning illuminating a foreboding castle. A visual pun or the classic setting to a gothic mystery? Yes, to both.

It’s going to take a patient reader, though, to put the pieces together in this suspenseful, supernatural tale. No sooner does the first series of cryptic illustrations end (with a bang, no less!), when chapter one begins with a completely different story arc. And it stays that way. Kiersten White’s storyline, involving sisters Cora and Minnie, brothers Thomas and Charles, and mysterious family friend Arthur, doesn’t intersect the graphic story Jim Di Bartolo is telling in alternating chapters . . . until the end. And because Di Bartolo’s vibrant, often violent illustrations are not scripted, readers must wait to discover how the graphic component ties in. Confusing? Intriguing? Oh, absolutely.

The written chapters center around the five characters mentioned above. It is summer in Maine. Cora and Minnie’s mother runs a boarding house for the tourists and brothers Thomas and Charles have been sent there from New York City by their father, ostensibly for Charles’ health. Cora and Minnie are soon employed as companions to Charles, chaperoned under the watchful gaze of Arthur, whose family connection to the girls is initially left in speculation. Recently orphaned, Arthur had arrived at the boarding house hoping to unburden himself of a suitcase full of evidence so horrific that it was, in some way, responsible for the loss of his parents. Unfortunately for Arthur, the intended recipient—Cora and Minnie’s father—has died. So Arthur stays on, hoping to protect them all from a powerful sect.

I’ve admired Jim Di Bartolo’s artwork ever since I first saw it on the cover of Blackbringer, a remarkable fantasy written by his wife, Laini Taylor (and one that I highly recommend: incredible world building, original characters, and suspense). His illustrations have been featured in several of her books and in their comic book collaboration, The Drowned. I admire the emotion and energy in his work, how his illustrations never feel static. There’s an “otherworld” aura to his art, which works so well here. His name was actually what drew me to this book in the first place.

As the author of the Paranormalcy series, Kiersten White has built books around the supernatural so she’s on familiar ground. This time her tone is dark, somber and threatening. The pace is hypnotically deliberate even as the action begins to build. Readers can’t help but feel a bit off-kilter while waiting for two storylines to finally coalesce—which I quite liked, though others may find it trying. My quibble comes from the lack of details as I came to the end of the book; more history and background is what I wanted (Perhaps there’s a prequel in the works?). But that’s a minor fault to this atmospheric mystery. It’s a slim novel and a great reading escape for those looking for a chilling read.
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Cora and Minnie are sisters, who live with their mom and make a living running a boarding house in the late 1800s. One day, Thomas and Charles, who are brothers, show up at the boarding house to get away from the city for a while. All of them have suffered a loss and that is illustrated in the seemingly dark and brooding images. Sinister guests start to show up at the boarding house and Thomas and Charles want to protect Cora and Minnie against this unknown danger. Timelines begin to cross between the text and the illustrations and as readers get deeper into the story, the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place. It really is a unique form of storytelling that takes place in this book.

I chose this book because I have read all of White’s other books and I enjoy them. It also really stood out to be because the book is half text and half graphic novel and it seemed interesting to intertwine the 2 styles of fiction. What really stood out is that both the author and illustrator were able to convey a sense of hope among a sense of loss. It is a paranormal, horror, mystery, action-filled story. There are secrets to unravel that will keep the reader hooked.

I think this book is a great collaboration between literature and visual arts and could be shown to art and english literature teachers to use in their classrooms. The book itself is worth noting as it is printed in full color on heavyweight glossy paper. Not the usual medium for YA books. I don’t think this book is for every teen reader, but those who do get into it, will flip back through the pages when they get to the end. I would recommend it for the high school library. While not graphically depicted, death permeates the story and I would say that it is more for the mature teen reader. ( )

In the Shadows is a marvelous combination of stories told in alternating illustrated pages and text. While it takes most of In the Shadows for the two stories to interweave, the revelation when they do is pretty awesome. The illustrations are gorgeous in full color and fully convey the action taking place. I’m really tempted to now go find the rest of Jim Di Bartolo’s work! The text story written by Kiersten White combines spooky elements of a mysterious cult with the fun of a summer in a small town for our five main characters. If you enjoy art interwoven with fantasy, you can’t miss In the Shadows!
Note: I received In the Shadows from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.



In the Shadows by Jim Di Bartolo, Kiersten White
Published by Scholastic Press on April 29th, 2014
Genres: Dark Fantasy, YA
Length: 384 pages
How I got my copy: Publisher

Cora and Minnie are sisters living in a small, stifling town where strange and mysterious things occur. Their mother runs the local boarding house. Their father is gone. The woman up the hill may or may not be a witch.

Thomas and Charles are brothers who’ve been exiled to the boarding house so Thomas can tame his ways and Charles can fight an illness that is killing him with increasing speed. Their family history is one of sorrow and guilt. They think they can escape from it . . . but they can’t.

Strengths:
Have I mentioned enough yet how beautiful In the Shadows’ illustrations are? Between each text chapter there are 2-10 pages of full color, graphic-novel-esque panels telling a separate story from the text. Some of the less-spooky ones I wish I could embiggen (totally a word) and stick on a wall; such lovely spring scenes :D.
While the two completely separate (seeming) stories might be confusing at first, I highly suggest just enjoying the two stories as separate plots until you see how they fit together. It’s pretty epic and made me want to go back and reread it all over again!
In the Shadows gets pretty spooky at times, but I found it to be a nice balance between tension from the presence of the cult and beautiful summer days. The five kids do plenty of running around and exploring the small town, and it makes me excited for summer to arrive, haha.
Normally five MC’s seems a bit much to me, but I found each of the kids to have their own interesting thing going on despite the short length of In the Shadows. I would have liked to get to know each of them even better of course, but the glimpses you get were still enough for me to value each of the characters’ presence in the story.

Weaknesses:
So there is this mysterious cult that seems to have some magic ability right? That’s about all you get to find out, with a little bit more explained at the end. I really wanted to know way more about this group and their magic. Do we see the only magic they have, or can they do other things? How did they form up and figure out this magic anyway? Who are all the other people on the lists and how are they involved?
Along those same lines, I wanted there to be a little bit more text in the illustrations, such as dialogue boxes or names worked in. I appreciate the mystery that remained about who the main person in the illustrated story is, but I have no real idea who the baddies that he was fighting are in relation to the text story and I want to know! Or maybe there should be a companion book that swaps the stories so we get illustrations for the text story and text for the illustrated story :D.
This point is a weakness for me because I’m a scaredy cat and more just a general point of information for those who might also be scaredy-cats ;-). The illustrations get downright spooky. In the Shadows isn’t a great book to read before bed since the illustrations make the spooky things all the more sudden and real. I actually was a bit afraid of getting nightmares, but I was too exhausted after staying up to read, hehe.

Summary:
In the Shadows is a wonderfully unique book that definitely pulls off this combination of illustrated and text-based stories. I really hope to see more from this collaboration or similar collaborations in the future since In the Shadows was just so much fun to read! The art is quite beautiful and I can’t recommend In the Shadows enough to those dark fantasy fans that enjoy art to go along with their books :). Also I really don’t think the ebook version would be able to do justice to these illustrations, but I haven’t tried it, so I have no actual evidence. ( )