Shadowshaper
The Shadowshaper Cypher series, Book 1
Daniel José Older
Scholastic
Fiction, YA Fantasy
Themes: Creative Power, Diversity, Ghosts and Spirits, Girl Power, Hidden Wonders, Magic Workers, Urban Tales
***+
Description
It started the day Sierra saw a tear fall from the eye of a faded mural, her first hint of a hidden heritage. She always felt close to her Puerto Rican roots and family, but she had no idea of the hidden depths in her Brooklyn neighborhood, the fading community of shadowshapers, able to infuse art and song with ancestral spirits... a community once led by her stroke-ridden grandfather and a mysterious figure known as Lucera. Now the shadowshapers are under assault as an outside force hunts them down - a force that belives Sierra knows how to find the missing Lucera. Facing reanimated corpses and twisted shadow beasts, Sierra must race to solve a riddle and harness her own shadowshaping gifts before her family and her community are forever destroyed.
Review
This book was a deep plunge into a culture and community I'd never experienced before, New York City's Puerto Rican neighborhoods. Themes of cultural identity, generation gaps, racism, sexism, and gentrification run through the tale. They find embodiment in the antagonist, the white anthropologist John Wick, whose research into spiritual traditions around the world twisted his good intentions into a conviction that he alone was capable of safeguarding the future of someone else's heritage - a heritage he twists, abuses, and defiles in his efforts to preserve it. Once in a while, the themes could get a bit heavy-handed, but such issues are very much a part of Sierra's world, and need addressing. As for the main plot, it often moves at breakneck speed... almost too fast, as it piles on names and relationships even as I struggled to find my bearings. Shadowshaping itself is relegated to background texture for a good chunk of the story, particularly as Sierra reflects on what it means to be a Puerto Rican teen in modern Brooklyn (and deals with her first serious boyfriend - a Haitian, to the horror of her aunt Rosa), but eventually steps into the forefront. Once in a while it grew tiresome how most everyone know about the neighborhood secret but Sierra, holding out even when it's clear she's in direct danger. Something about the way things played out, alongside the character clutter, made me just unsatisfied enough to hold it back from a four-star rating, but overall it's a nicely different urban fantasy adventure, a refreshing dose of diversity.