Lost Shadow by Chanda Hahn

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Title: Lost Shadow
Author: Chanda Hahn
Series: Neverwood Chronicles #3
Published by: Indie
Release Date: December 17, 2018
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 342
Genres: Fairy Tale Retelling, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 Retellings Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Summer Hunt
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

Not all shadows are monsters.
And some were never meant to die.

Wendy is on a quest for vengeance after Hook kidnapped the lost boys and destroyed their school. Stuck as a shadow, Peter’s body is weakening because each time he dies and regenerates, may be his last. Meanwhile, Wendy is running out of time to track down Hook, save the boys, and rescue Peter before he’s lost as shadow forever.

But a surprising clue leads to the mysterious island where it all began.
Neverland.
Right when they believe the nightmare is over, they find the game is just beginning.

My Review:

3.75 stars — This whole series was so hard to review, because there were things I absolutely ADORED about each installment, like 5 stars awesome!  And then there were things that just bugged me and left me confused and didn’t fit.  Basically it had the potential to be an absolute favourite, but it just fell short by a wee bit.

Honestly, the imagination it takes to think up the twists and turns of turning Peter Pan into this strange urban fantasy/almost sci-fi twist just amazes me.  I loved how all the different characters fit, the way the special abilities manifested, the way little bits of the original tale fit into this new version.  The shadow stuff with Wendy was probably my favourite part.  I really ended up enjoying the way that all played out.  I saw some twists coming, but not others.  It wasn’t perfect by any means, there were parts that left me going “huh?”, but in general it was just fun!

I also enjoyed the overarching plot lead up to what was taking place on Neverland.  I didn’t see it coming, and it was well done (if a bit over the top at times).  It made for some intense action/suspense moments, and a chance to see so many different characters come into their own and help out overall.

I was both happy and unsatisfied with Jax’s story.  It was like, it was ALMOST what I needed, but something was missing to truly make it amazing.  I kind of felt sorry for him in the end, and I’m not entirely sure I understand how the future plays out there.

Peter was still pretty adorable, and I felt like his character was probably the most consistent.  He got into trouble, had a carefree sense about him, always adding in his sarcastic quips, but you could feel the weight of responsibility on his shoulders too.

And Tink was still amazeballs.  Her character was so Tink, I can’t even.  And her and John were so cute together.  Yeah, honestly, so many of the secondary characters just added a little bit of fun and heart to the story (Tootles, Michael, Ditto, even Leroy and Wu Zan).  I’m on the fence with the villains though.  They weren’t three dimensional, they were pretty much caricatures of villains.  And it annoyed me how Wendy didn’t see through Jeremy.  I don’t feel like enough effort was put into helping us understand Hook and Jeremy’s motivations, so I’m uncertain how to feel about the ending.

I’m a character driven reader, and I felt like a lot of the characters reactions were so volatile (Wendy in particular), even given they were teenagers, it still just didn’t feel authentic.  Bummer.

All in all, the series was definitely fun, even if flawed.  I’d definitely recommend it, just with reservations.

COYER Summer Hunt: Read a book that prominently includes gaming in some way — 4 points.