DNF Audiobook Review – Ghost Girl in the Corner (The Shadowshaper Cypher, Book 1.5) by Daniel Jose Older, Narrated by Anika Noni Rose (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery/Contemporary Fiction
Length: 369 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: September 7, 2021
ASIN: B08QHWRPJ8
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in The Inheritance Games series
Source: Borrowed eBook from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars
“Trying to shake off the strange malaise that separates her from even her girlfriend Izzy, Tee decides to take over the Bed-Stuy Searchlight for the summer.
But then she finds an alluring violet dress in the newspaper office, and a cute ghost girl no one else can see. Izzy can tell Tee’s drifting away from her – she misses Izzy’s shows and skips shadowshaper practice – and she won’t stand for it.
Yet when a girl goes missing in Bed-Stuy, Izzy needs Tee to get the word out and help investigate. Can they break through their distance and reconnect before someone else dies?”
Series Info/Source: This is a novella in the Shadowshaper Cypher series, which I did not know when I picked it up to read from my library. It does not stand alone well and I would only pick this up if you’ve read at least the first book in the Shadowshaper Cypher series. I borrowed this on audiobook from my library.
Thoughts: I am giving this 4 stars because I didn’t finish it because I didn’t realize it was part of a series. I got about 50% of the way through this and then set it aside. I was incredibly confused about what was going on throughout the story.
The story seems to be following some characters that are part of a Shadowshaper Society or something and some of them are in a band (or they are rappers?) as well. The main character is having relationship troubles with her girlfriend and there is a strange ghost girl in the shop that she runs. That’s about what I got from this book in the first half.
The writing isn’t bad or anything. There’s a lot of slang and the narration on the audiobook was a bit hard to understand with background noise. It wasn’t really for me and I was so lost about who was who and what was going on that I decided not to continue it.
If you are a fan of this series you’ll probably enjoy this, but if you are just looking for a novella to read and haven’t read other books in the series you’ll be completely lost and confused.
My Summary (4/5): Overall the first half of this book was well written but hard to follow if you haven’t read other books in the series. I didn’t enjoy it enough to finish it or to go back and pick up other books in this series. I was just looking for a fun, quick, paranormal novella audiobook to listen to and this didn’t really work for me because of how confused I was about the characters and the world.
