Photo credits: Free Photos
Edited by Vaishali
Title: 'Shadowfever'
Author: Karen Marie Moning Series: (Fever #5) Genre: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, New Adult, Paranormal romance, Occult fiction, Fae Publisher: Delacorte Press Year of Publication: 2011 Version: Mass Market Paperback ISBN: 978-0-440-24441-7
NOTE: Would recommend reading the four previous books in this series before reading this review!
Review
Rating: 5 gloriously epic stars !!!
“Most people are good and occasionally do something they know is bad. Some people are bad and struggle every day to keep it under control. Others are corrupt to the core and don’t give a damn, as long as they don’t get caught. But evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes its good.”
With an open heart and an open mind, the root from which I tackle any and every book I desire to devour, I read this series with one goal In mind (as I do with all reading experiences) to extract all the good, the bad, the beautiful, the wonderful, the anguish, joy and bliss, the heartache and dark splendour it discharges, only to take even more from me as soon as my eyes fix upon the first page, to put me at a mercy for which It gives and I take, for which I give and it takes heatedly and tremendously. But I say, take from me, take all you want, until I’m nothing but a vacant vessel, fretful, and stumbling, hollow and reverberating, so full and brimming with eyes open and yet determinedly closed to the unavoidability of having to observe and bear witness to the demise of a story that is more than just a story, possibly a facet of life in its own existential realm. That was what reading 'Shadowfever' by Karen Marie Moning was like.
“Can there be any act of creation that does not first destroy? Villages fall. Cities rise. Humans die. Life springs from the soil therein they lie. Is not any act of destruction, should time enough pass, an act of creation?”
“Shadowfever” is one of the best conclusions to any book series I have ever read. It was everything and more than everything the settlement of a series should be. Moning’s world of the Fae and Irish, humans and beast, man and creature, expounds and challenges the human race at its best and worst, picks apart the subtle discolourations in the degrees of virtue and disposition, in idiosyncrasies, in the drives and gluttony of humankind, a complex world without definition and open for speculation, characters of lawlessness and chaos, without generic structure and desire to be anything other than what they are.
“Some people wouldn’t see a traitor when they looked at me. Some people would see a survivor. Call me anything you like – I sleep fine at night. But you will look at me when you say it. Or I’ll get so far in your face you’ll be seeing me with your eyes closed. You’ll be seeing me in your nightmares. I’ll scorch myself in the backs of your eyelids. Get off my back and stay off it. I’m not the woman I used to be. If you want a war with me, you’ll get one.”
Conflicts are predominantly internal for Mac, and the best stories for me are about battling those innate prejudices and clashes of the heart and mind and so much does Mac transmogrify into a formidable fighter in her own right. Determinism and destiny are central models for which this whole story orbits, with Mac defining or ratherundefining her place in life and how much of her will shapes her reality in comparison to the fates drawing her life out for her. Moning sticks steadfastly to her characterisations of the people who walk her world and they are consistent through and through in their ethics and beliefs. Mac and Barrons's finale was alarming and not without its blindsiding U-turns of unpredictability and plot twists. This story was persistent, but also forgiving in feeling and excitement, vast in scale and cunning in its own attempts in feigning illusion in the raw tangibility of the characters who punch through the pages in a world that feels only a blink of an eye away.
“Dying is overrated. Human sentimentality has twisted it into the ultimate act of love. Biggest load of bullshit in the world. Dying for someone isn’t the hard thing. The man that dies escapes. Plain and simple. Game over. End of pain…Try living for someone. Through it all – good, bad, thick, thin, joy, suffering. That’s the hard thing.”
I was engrossed and indulgent, becoming more and equally less human as I read 'Shadoefever'. I spared many tears for the characters, my heart plummeted from perplexity, I laughed and found amusement between the lines of pandemonium, losing my way and finding my way as Mac found her way to love and freedom. This story isn’t predominantly a love story or a paranormal romance, it’s an all-around fantasy at its best, epic at its core - just like Mac - and unrepentantly furtive just like Barrons. I love watching characters learn, dredge up hidden depths. I love hearing them talk to me about who they are and what they think they are not. I love them failing only to find them never accepting failure again. I love watching them reform, merge, create, destroy, alter, and evolve. I love them for their potential worst and potential best. I love their openness and honesty, if never to their companions and themselves but to me. I love the way that author’s such as Moning weave mythology and legend into such credible tales, eradicating the notion of myth all together just by the faith in which they tell a story.
“Do you think love just goes away? Pops out of existence when it becomes too painful or inconvenient, as if you never felt it? … If only it did. If only it could be turned off. It’s not a faucet. Love’s a bloody river with level-five rapids. Only a catastrophic act of nature or a dam has any chance of stopping it – and then usually only succeeds in diverting it. Both measures are extreme and change the terrain so much you end up wondering why you bothered. No landmarks to gauge your position when it’s done. Only way to survive is to devise new ways to map out life. You loved her yesterday, you love her today. And she did something that devastates you. You’ll love her tomorrow.”
The 'Fever' series is a melodious, dark composition of a world in self-destruct, earnest in redemption and correspondingly subject to suffering the worst at their own hands of making. It affected me in the ways my most favourite books have thus far – challengingly, chargingly, intensely, convincingly and in all the dynamic ways I want a book to. I feel so aggrieved to leave Mac and Barrons and this world behind, i can't imagine this Mac and Barrons sized hole being filled without more of this tale. In a world where silent stories walk past us every day, whisper beneath clouded breaths and pushed so far into the subconscious of a person’s soul, we’re usually left with a deafening silence cleaving person from person. Stories for me, turn that silence into noise and nourishment, into conversation my inner self can talk to and I can’t wait to fill myself with more noise in the form of tales just like this.
'Shadowfever' is EPIC! I recommend this to anyone who loves a good story-teller and a darkly vivid story.
“Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset, to touch the one you love, to try again.”
“Hell would be waking up and wanting nothing.” “You’re Mac. And I’m Jericho. And nothing else matters. Never will. You exist in a place that is beyond rules for me.” I gave this book 5 stars -
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My Rating System: ★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read _________________________________________
THIS SECTION WILL/MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!
Things I liked/Favourite Parts:
1) Thanatos and Eros concept. 2) Mac and Barrons! 3) K’Vruck 4) Barrons being alive! – and never being able to die. 5) Mac facing off with Lor. 6) Jack Lane. 7) Mac reuniting with her parents. 8) Mac giving Dani a belated birthday party. 9) Mac changing her hair back to its natural colour. 10) Pretty much everything about this book :) 11) I'm a sucker for intelligently written prose, head- swivelling quotes, and parables that teach as much as the author tells the story. This series educated about life as much as anything else.
Queries/Thoughts:
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1) I still want to know who fathered Isla. Nana O’Reilly said Patrona carried the identity of Isla’s father to the grave. Was it the Unseelie King? 2) As much as I like the nuanced intricacy of his character, Barrons does have double standards. 3) I realise that it’s in keeping with Barrons’ character for his past to continue to be a thing of question and ambiguity but I still want to know certain things about him. Like, in ‘Dreamfever’ when Mac is ‘pri-ya’ and penetrates into his mind to hear him talking about a woman who was the epicentre of his world, who was she? Was he in love with her? Was she the mother of this child? When Mac penetrates another memory of him being in the Seelie court and killing the princess, he says that ‘they don’t remember him’ but he ‘will make them fear him’. It’s not spoken of ever again, which personally leaves some holes in the story. Did he want revenge for something they did? 4) Fiona says to Barrons that ‘you should have let me die where you found me’ – there is no more information about this either. 5) I guessed some of the major spoilers (with my overactive mind) but the author constantly kept me on edge with questioning my own theories with her bluffs! 6) I would have liked more chapters from Barrons’ point of view
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Related posts:
● 'Darkfever' by Karen Marie Moning
● 'The Alpha Alternative: JZB sex scene' by Karen Marie Moning ● 'Bloodfever' by Karen Marie Moning ● 'Faefever' by Karen Marie Moning ● 'Dreamfever' by Karen Marie Moning ______________________________________________________________ CategoriesAll Leave a comment and let's talk about 'Shadowfever'
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