Shadow Walkers

Summary: Zach’s life on a small island off the coast of Washington State is interrupted when his younger brother is suddenly kidnapped. The police doesn’t seem to be trying hard enough, so Zach takes matters into his own hands—he learns to astral project. In this shadowy plane, Zach meets a cute boy, and the two work together to uncover who kidnapped Zach’s brother.

My thoughts: I’d never read about astral projection before, so Shadow Walkers was definitely interesting. Brent Hartinger developed the idea of walking through a dream world really well, and I felt as if I understood the concept pretty well by the time the story was over. The astral projection world was creative, too—I enjoyed the little obstacles that got in Zach’s way as he navigated around, especially the evil squid-thing (don’t laugh!).

Other than the unique astral projecting concept, I wasn’t too thrilled with Shadow Walkers. Almost all of the characters seemed pretty flat to me, with the exception of Zach and his little brother, Gilbert. The little dude had such a great personality! Zach’s feelings of isolation and loneliness were laid out pretty well, and I liked that he had such a strong relationship with friends over the internet. I’m sure most of us bloggers can relate to that! Other than those two characters, though, I didn’t feel any connection with others in the story.
Zach’s romance with Emory, the boy he meets while astral projecting, seemed extremely unnatural—they meet, and two days later are professing their love for each other. Even for a paranormal romance, I felt it was way too unrealistic (I actually snorted when Emory told Zach he loved him! I just couldn’t believe it!).

The mystery aspect of the story was a bit predictable, and Zach’s “I have to be a hero” attitude got stale after a while. Still, I managed to finish the book easily in two hours, and was content with the (somewhat unbelievable) ending. Though I can’t say that I completely enjoyed Shadow Walkers, others, especially younger readers, might find the suspense of the shadow world fascinating. ( )