Happy Monday! Welcome to my stop on The Shadow of Loss Blog Tour hosted by YA Bound Book Tours. Click here to follow along with the full tour schedule.
Title: The Shadow of Loss
Author: Josefina Gutierrez
Publication date: August 31st 2014
Publisher: BookBaby
Genre: YA Coming of Age
Source: Copy for review
Evelyn Gonzalez keeps losing people, which is always hard, but has she lost something much more? Has she lost her soul? Evelyn has a nervous breakdown and is institutionalized, after months of sorrow and pain she is thrust back into the world. The world of teenage angst and Calculus.
Can she trust people again? Especially after hurtful assumptions and judgments made her miss her junior year of high school. Evelyn is just trying to heal what she lost and graduate from high school.
Have you ever looked at a book and just knew you were going to love it, like you had a sixth sense kind of feeling about it? After you've read the synopsis and then once you've read the book, it was everything you dreamed of and more? The Shadow of Loss was like that for me.
I can't resist books like this one where the main character has been to hell and back and must start life afresh, working through her pain and loss. Not only does The Shadow of Loss have an interesting plot, but it's also a multicultural story - Evelyn's mother is German and her father is Mexican. She has an older sister who shares the same parents. She talks about the way she's treated differently because her skin is darker than her sister's and how her sister was always seen as "the pretty one." She shares traditions her father passed down to her and her sister.
In The Shadow of Loss, Evelyn feels like she's starting over again in a new town, a new school with new people after she's recently been institutionalized. She wonders how she's going to be able to adjust to life outside of those institutional walls. Evelyn is released to her older sister and moves in with her.
After what's happened to her, she's understandably afraid to let anyone get close to her. I don't want to say much about what exactly she's been through since there isn't much about it in the synopsis - I don't want to spoil the plot for anyone. Suffice it to say, she's been to hell and back, but she's extremely tough, tougher than she gives herself credit for, and has the support to get through this time in her life.
The Shadow of Loss is clever, the dialogue is realistic, and this novel will make you think about the characters and story long after the last page. It's the very best kind of YA coming-of-age story.
My Rating:
Josefina Gutierrez is a Young Adult eBook author and a forever student currently working towards a Masters in Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Josefina writes Young Adult Multicultural, Sci-fi, and Fantasy literature in her free time when she's not embarking on adventures with her son and gnomes Fitzgerald and Bartholomew.
Blog Tour organized by:
Whoa, this sounds super-emotional. I want to be on this journey with Evelyn...understanding what it was that took her to hell and admiring her as she realizes she has the strength to survive and make her way back. I'm so glad your gut was right with this one, Jennifer. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for putting this one on my radar. :)
ReplyDeleteI loved taking the journey with her. Books that explore deep emotional issues are definitely for me, and I think my experiences with loss and my interest in psychology are big parts of my reasons why. Thank you, Brandee! :)
DeleteThank you!! Jennifer, I really appreciate you being apart of my tour this week. It means more to me than zebra cakes-- and that is something. I am super psyched you enjoyed the book!
ReplyDeleteHi Josefina! You're very welcome, and wow!! More than zebra cakes? That's a lot! :) I'm looking forward to your future books! :)
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