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Thursday, November 10, 2011

Review: Shift (Shade, Book 2) by Jeri Smith-Ready

Publisher: Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster)
Goodreads Synopsis:

Aura’s life is anything but easy. Her boyfriend, Logan, died, and his slides between ghost and shade have left her reeling. Aura knows he needs her now more than ever. She loves Logan, but she can’t deny her connection with the totally supportive, totally gorgeous Zachary. And she’s not sure that she wants to. Logan and Zachary will fight to be the one by her side, but Aura needs them both to uncover the mystery of her past—the mystery of the Shift.
As Aura’s search uncovers new truths, she must decide whom to trust with her secrets…and her heart.


Review:
 
The first book in this series, I read around the time that it first came out, and I was expecting it to be a one-shot. I've done this several times it seems, but now I'm more wary and kind of assume that books are in some kind of series. Recently, most have been. And despite the huge cliffhanger ending, I really enjoyed the book. This one, I didn't enjoy as much. I still liked it, but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be.
One thing that bothers me about this series, is Logan. For more reason than one, really. I really like him, actually. In the first one, I was really rooting for Zachary (not to say that I wasn't in this one), and I wanted Logan to pass on already. It bothered me that he was still around, because he wasn't going to be able to come back alive, and by staying around, he was just dragging out the heartbreak of everyone else. It was keeping everyone from trying to get over it and move on. Not to say that they were all supposed to forget him, but that they needed to move on from his death and onto the rest of their lives. It was just dragging out Aura's feelings, and keeping her from moving on. In this one, it felt like she was forcing herself to move on, which in a way she should do. And near the end of the book, it feels like she's trying to move forward, and that she's almost there, but that she still feels something for him. If she was supposed to have already moved on completely from him, then I do feel that that was too fast for her.
Another thing that bothers me about Logan, or rather upsets me about him, is that I like him. He's very much a character that I would swoon over, and that I did swoon over. I wouldn't let myself do it completely, because he has to move on eventually, he can't be around forever, because he's dead and it just wouldn't work.
Zachary is also a character that I would swoon over. And I did swoon over him, but I think I did more of it in the first book than the second. I remember liking him more than I did when reading the second book, and I kept trying to get myself to like him more. But I think I like Logan more, which upsets me because he has to move on, and so therefore isn't really a choice. I still liked Zachary, and there were certain parts where I liked him a lot, but the swoon-worthy scenes just didn't really get me as excited as I'd hoped they would.
Aura is alright. I like her enough. Her struggle with Logan and Zachary frustrated me some, because of how she kept going back and forth on them without really making a decision. And at certain parts, she seemed particularly full of herself. Like with Logan and the band, she kept mentioning how that would affect her. And how he could slip up and say something, since he can't lie. I understand why she would think these things, as they make perfect sense. And it would suck if something he, or someone else, did that would ruin things for her, but I felt like she was thinking that everything was about her, almost. Like, yea, Logan won't be there to deal with all of the repercussions, and yea he's a ghost and draws attention to himself, but he also deserves to move on how he wants, even if he should have done it a while ago. And, yea, the book is kind of about her, since she's the main character and everything is happening around and to her, but it seemed a bit too self-centered. I might think this, though, because it wasn't written out as well as it could have been, and because it was usually about Logan. And I like Logan more than I do Aura.
I like the band, a lot. Megan and Mickey, and Dylan, and Siobhan. I wouldn't have minded a little more of them. I would read a book just centered around them, I like them that much. 
The writing was pretty straight forward. It wasn't particularly pretty, and it was all in first person in Aura's mind. It didn't particularly keep me attached to the book, which might have been because of my feelings for Aura, but it didn't bother me or anything.
The story progresses pretty well. It's very mainly centered on Aura and Zachary and Logan, but there's some of the main plot line in there as well. We find some more things about Aura's parents, and the shift and shine thing, and get some more possible theories of why the shift happened. I am looking forward to finding out what happens with that plot in the next book.
The ending is a little open, but I have an idea of what will happen next. I'm hoping that I fall for Zachary again, and that I like Aura more. There was some major swoon-worthy events in the last half of the book with Aura and Zachary, which I didn't fall for completely but I that there's more of it in the next book, and that I like it more.

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