Savitri, Corey, and his twin sister Holly have been friends for the past eleven years. Their fierce devotion to each other, and shared love for freerunning, have made them inseparable. With just a few months left of school, they plan to go to nearby colleges in Chicago. Though Savi has been accepted to Princeton, she is sure she and Corey can continue dating and that she can remain best friends with Holly. However, the day she gathers her courage to tell them she was accepted at Princeton is the day Corey is shot dead, Holly is put into a coma, and she becomes the lone witness to a crime.

Days turn into weeks as Savi tries to come to grips with Corey’s loss and her guilt for not being able to save him, try to remember details for the police, and help Holly through her recovery. Meanwhile Holly’s will to live comes from the voice inside her head that assures her it knows how to bring Corey back from the Shadowlands where she last saw him being taken captive. All she has to do is to listen to the voice and do what it says. If she does, she can bring Corey back home.

Deeply affected by Corey’s loss, Savi and Holly tell their stories in alternating chapters and through graphic novel inserts. Readers will not only receive an education on freerunning, but will also learn about the love between a brother and sister as well as true friendship and how being loyal to someone might involve making tough, unpopular decisions.

It took me awhile to get into this book as I found the detailed freerunning explanations to be boring. However I liked the graphic novel inserts as it helped frame Holly’s thoughts and made them more understandable. Holly and Savitri’s emotions were raw and real, and the author did an excellent job exploring and detailing how each confronted and dealt with their pain.

Recommended for ages 14 and older.

Book review link: https://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/chasing-shadows-swati-avasth... ( )

Original story that is character driven with a graphic novel embedded in the story. The illustrations reflect the mood of the story well. ( )

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

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Chasing Shadows didn’t get any marketing to speak of, and I really didn’t know much about it. What lured me into requesting it was the mixed media element, the combination of a regular novel and graphic novel. Turns out Chasing Shadows is just as unique as that suggests. Despite there being a whole lot to like about it, the book missed worming its way into my heart, and I ended up feeling rather bored a lot of the time.

Chasing Shadows has a great hook. The first couple of chapters are incredibly intense. Holly, Corey and Savitri are free running through the city, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, doing flips and handstands. Holly and Corey are twins, daring and willing to take risks. Savitri’s the careful one, the one who might be heading off to Stanford in the fall and leaving her best friend and boyfriend behind. As they’re confronting this fact, a shooting comes out of nowhere, killing Corey and sending Holly into a coma.

Basically, my jaw was on the floor. Before you get on me about spoilers, this all happens before page 20. It’s intense and terrifying and random. I thought this was going to be totally my thing, but then the book got weird. The graphic novel sections then often show Corey in death, where Holly’s trying to save him from Kortha, an evil snake man. Apparently this mixes a lot of Hindu mythology, learned from Savitri, but it was a bit much for me. Every time that happened, I was thrown out of the book and going “REALLY?” It’s a unique idea, and I do like the way that Avasthi blended in Hindu mythology, so I think it will work for some readers more than it did for me.

Savitri is definitely the best character. She works really hard to be a good friend to Holly, who’s going off her rocker, while also trying to deal with the death of the boy she loved. For once, a book depicts a POC character without making a HUGE deal out of her or having her end up being a terrible person. Savitri’s the one who’s got it all together. She’s smart, she’s a planner, and she’s a really good person. There is mention of her heritage and it’s obviously important to her, but Savitri is also very blended into American culture.

Chasing Shadows is often startling and terrifying. If you connect emotionally to the characters, events will probably ruin you. On the one hand, I did love the subject matter, dealing with grief in the wake of Corey’s death, but I just wasn’t sure if Holly’s reaction was realistic or not. Her insanity after such a tragedy, particularly knowing he was right next to her when he died and probably saved her life, does seem possible, but the whole thing with Kortha and the Leopardess, her favorite superhero, was so ridiculous I had trouble taking it seriously.

I also ended up struggling with the graphic novel sections. They always happened in Holly’s point of view, but she also had prose POV too. It seems like the graphic novel bits are meant to represent her madness, but it’s stated at one point that she’s very visual, and that’s not a crazy thing to be. It would have worked better for me if Holly were ALL graphic novel, not just when she’s going off the rails, because I don’t like the comments that makes on a visual thinker.

Ultimately, I think Chasing Shadows has a lot of draws: free running, mental health, and diversity. Though I didn’t love it, I would definitely recommend it to the right reader. ( )

Had to DNF because of the adult language, but it's a really cool concept (YA lit combined with graphic novel), and well-written. I was totally sucked into the story and bummed to put it down.

Advance copy received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

CHASING SHADOWS isn't the type of book I normally read. I'm an action oriented, zombie-loving kinda gal, but I read Swati Avasthi's SPLIT and was so taken with it, that I quickly picked up this book the second I saw that it was available

One of Avasthi's great strengths are her characters. They live. They breathe. They are dimensional and so realistic that it's hard not to be drawn into the stories where she places them.

In CHASING SHADOWS the principle characters are Holly, her twin brother Corey, and their best friend and girl friend, Savitri (Sav). They are high schoolers in their senior year, and while deeply bound to one another, they face the divide that can be college. Corey and Holly are interested, but not inspired to leave the home town they love. Savitri, however, has high aspirations and all three of them are trying to come to grips with the fact that Sav is moving on. That Princeton or another school beacons.

All of their feelings about this are stripped away and made absolutely insignificant when Corey is shot and dies right in front of the girls.

What follows is a descent in sorrow and madness as the girls try to cope with the depth of their loss; and as they get the crazy notion to track down Corey's assassin.

CHASING SHADOWS is told in a partially graphic novel style. There is mostly text, but also some wonderful graphic novel pages by Craig Phillips.

As a read I found it gut wrenching. Swati's portrayal of their grief and their parents' grief made me have to put the book down twice. But I always came back, because there's a mystery involved. And because I needed to know what the girls would do.

This is a great Halloween read, by the way. There's a creepy under-story to the real world adventure. ( )