Book 7: SHINE, by Jeri Smith-Ready

[lady_schrapnell]

I'm SO not putting the cover here, as it's vile. Actually, I'm not going to say all that much about this book anyway, as it's book 3 of a trilogy, and it's all spoilers for book 1. So the few random thoughts that are all I'm capable of, for the trilogy.

1. This isn't exactly the kind of fantasy that would appeal to the readers who like their fantasy

Comments

[asakiyume]

For everyone who hasn't read it, all children born after the Shift - some unknown event that happened 16 years before book 1 - can see ghosts, while those who were born before it, cannot. Even those who could see them before the Shift lost the ability.

It's interesting to me when this sort of thing is made very clear in a story. I always wonder why it was that the author wanted to make things so sweeping and so clearcut.

[lady_schrapnell]

At the risk of stepping into authorial intentionality waters... [proceeds to do so]

I think in this case there were a few things going on. One was that this was supposed to be a very clear-cut everything changes type of event, with huge implications for society. (One of the things I found fascinating was the idea of all adults being totally dependent on under-age teens to translate the ghosts for them.) The first book really concentrates more on the here-and-now of this world, with the protag's boyfriend dying and remaining a ghost she can see. But she's starting to search for answers about what happened, why, and what it means that she's the very first to have been born post-Shift. (Her second/potential boyfriend is the last pre-Shifter.) It's not until the final book that she travels to Newgrange where it all began and finds out what caused the Shift. (I found the exact what pretty silly, actually, but the scene in Newgrange was quite cool.)