I was scrolling on twitter one day when noticed that Epic Reads (the teen counterpart to Harper Collins Publishing) posted a link to sign up for an advanced reader program. All you had to do was tell them what genre of books you like and Harper Collins would send you an advanced reader copy of a book to get your feedback. I decided to sign up (since I never won any of those ARC giveaways) but I didn't really expect anything in return. The second or third week of January, my mom told me I got a package in the mail from Harper Collins and I was actually jumping around my kitchen as I tried to tear open the giant envelope. Inside, I found a nice letter from those epic people at Epic Reads and an advanced reader copy of a book called Shade Me by Jennifer Brown.

 

Shade Me is the first YA thriller that I'd ever read and I'm so glad that it was sent to me. I'm going to be honest with you, it isn't a book that I'd normally pick out myself. It's nothing personal, it's just that the last time I randomly picked up a book, I strongly disliked it. I'm happy to say that this was not the case with this particular book. I really enjoyed both the plot and characters more than I anticipated that I would.

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Upon reading the synopsis, I had two views: either this book was going to be horrible and cheesy or it was going to be fantastic. I really didn't expect anything in between. I thought the concept of the protagonist being able to see in color was kind of cheesy until I found out that synesthesia was an actual condition (http://synesthete.org/). Then, I was fascinated. It was really interesting how Nikki was able to use her ability or, as she saw it, her disability, to identify clues and interpret suspects'/other characters' motives and intentions.

 

As for the other characters, I found them to be well developed. Our main character does have a pretty cheesy last name, but it's something that I could easily overlook. She does tae kwon do, something I could easily relate to, but I found the fight scenes to be awkward and hard to picture. I also did not recognize some of the vocabulary the author used in reference to the martial art, which I found strange considering that I'm a black belt in the sport. My favorite thing about Nikki, though, was the fact that she learned from her mistakes. She was careless at a lot of different points in the story and did not hesitate to put herself into questionable situations not necessarily for the sake of the case, but just for the sake of being careless and choosing not to think things through. But her carelessness had a point and she did realize that she had been foolish and she did what she could to make up for her actions.

 

I also enjoyed that every character had some type of guilt pinned to them; it wasn't easy to anticipate who the real culprit was. In the end, my prediction wasn't completely true but it wasn't completely false either. The author kept me guessing the entire time.

 

I suppose I need to talk about the romance in this book now. The entire point of the romantic relationship between Nikki and Dru was to thicken the plot and add more conflict between characters. This was the only motive I could think of, considering that the start of their relationship seemed very out of nowhere and they had just met a day or two prior. I came to like Dru, though. However, there was just something about his character that made me feel very uneasy. Even after finishing the book, I still have mixed feelings about him. I don't dislike him, but  I definitely don't like him either. Sorry, Dru Hollis.

 

The plot twist towards the end of Shade Me was incredible. I did not anticipate it at all and I had to stop and think about it for a while until all of the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. My favorite part of the story was the ending. This is the first book in a series, so there are still a lot of loose ends. But this mystery opened up the even larger question that Nikki doesn't initially realize she's trying to answer. A question involving a traumatic event in her childhood that shaped her beliefs up until this point in her life. The ending of this book points her to a lead or two and a few even bigger questions that now loom over Nikki's head and beg for her to seek out the answers. I cannot wait to see where Jennifer Brown takes this series and discover how Nikki Kill's story ends!