The Book of Blood and Shadow Author: Robin Wasserman
Release Date: April 10, 2012
Book Site: bookofbloodandshadow.com/
Publisher: Random House Children's Books and Knopf Books for Young Readers
Received: from NetGalley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Nora's life has become a nightmare that there is no waking up from...
her brother is dead, her best friend is lying in a pool of his own blood which his girlfriend is kneeling in, staring blankly, straight ahead while clutching the precious, and now bloody, letter that Nora gave him to keep safe...
but this isn't how it began. This is the middle. In the beginning we meet Nora after she's been awarded a full scholarship to the prestigious prep school on the other side of their town thanks to her incredible skills with the Latin language. She has a new best friend and is friends with his girlfriend; they spend every day together in teenage bliss.
So where does it all go wrong? Let Nora explain it all to you...explain the blood, the shadows, the translations, the whispers in the night...
My Thoughts: Great suspenseful book. This one will be a great one to buy for my HS Library! I can already see some of the kids who will love it in my head! This was a LONG book. There is just so much in it and it literally spans two continents with its mystery and suspense. This was very different from the other books I have read by this author. I loved the history, the Latin, the girl power that Nora is the best at translating and the broken girlness of Nora (as per usual.) I already have one student who's excited about this book because I was telling her all about the Latin in it and she's been studying Latin through our Virtual School for 2 years now! I can't wait to see the actual hardcover of this book to see what the separate parts really look like since I read a NetGalley of this. This is certainly a HS book though and not a MS one in my opinion with all the bloody parts which in a few places are very detailed. I even had to literally go and sit with my family in the bright lights downstairs one night when the book was really messing with my head! :D
Last thoughts: Florence and the Machine's "Ceremonials" album is a perfect soundtrack for this book, don't read this at night in the dark by yourself and I have got to go to Prague someday to see some of these places that are now burned into my head with Elizabeth and Nora for forever.
A book I won't soon forget! Intense! It leaves its mark!
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