YA Weekend: Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman
A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Series: Book 2 of Seraphina
Publisher: Random House Chrildren’s Books (March 10, 2015)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
I have to admit I went into Shadow Scale with no small amount of trepidation; from the ratings I’ve seen around the blogosphere, it seemed like most readers either loved it or hated it. I very rarely find myself skewing one way or the other though, so I wasn’t surprised when I finished this book and found my feelings lying somewhere in the middle. In other words, it wasn’t too bad. At the same time, it’s far from what I had in mind.
The book begins with a narrator recounting events of the first book in a historian-like tone, an introduction I appreciated a lot, actually. It’s been a while since I read Seraphina and the mini-recap was very helpful in refreshing my memory. For decades, the denizens of kingdom of Goredd have held an uneasy peace with the dragons of Tanamoot, but that period is soon coming to an end. As war looms on the horizon, our human-dragon protagonist Seraphina is asked to help Goredd. For as long as she could remember though, she’s hidden herself in the shadows, keeping the fact that she is a hybrid secret. But now, her very heritage is drawn into the conflict. No longer can she hide, as she is tasked to go on a quest across the kingdom to find other half-dragons like herself, for they may hold the secret to saving Goredd.
While Prince Kiggs and Princess Glisselda back home are preparing for the war, Seraphina embarks on this new adventure, pursued by enemies who want to stop her. More concerning, however, is a threat that unexpectedly arises – reports of a half dragon who can infiltrate the minds of others and take them over.
Anyway, I encountered several issues with Rachel Hartman’s new sequel. For one, it’s too long for my tastes, probably 100-200 pages too many. There’s just way to much going on, with Seraphina’s search for the other half-dragons, her search for her lost uncle, the conflict with the villain Jannoula, the freeing of her own gift that she herself has locked up away, and not to mention her feelings for Kiggs also have to be resolved. I hesitate to suggest that splitting this book into two would have made it better though, because I’m not sure that would solve any of the inherent problems like pacing or the fact that the plot felt way too meandering. These problems tried my patience, which is a shame since the story taken as a whole is in fact pretty good.
However, at times the book just felt too intent to give me more of what I don’t want, and less of what I actually do want. To put it bluntly, many parts of this novel were just plain dull. Things took an unreasonably long time to take off, and almost immediately after they did (just as I was getting into Seraphina’s quest too, I might add), the book changes tack again, letting the main character languish in one place before (re)introducing the story’s main villain in what I felt was the most incongruous way possible. This pattern repeated itself for me several more times, that is, every time things started to get interesting, I felt like was being pulled away again to focus on something else. It was very frustrating.
Shadow Scale does have its moments though, which is why I’m reluctant to write it off completely. The truth is that the parts that I did enjoy, I enjoyed very much. And as a character, Seraphina has grown immensely for me. Looking back, my main complaint about the first book was how passive she was. She still has her wallflower moments in this one, but on the whole she’s made great strides, her willingness to come out of her shell, take on a quest for her kingdom and travel far away from home being testament to that.
While I can’t recommend Shadow Scale wholeheartedly, it does offer a satisfying conclusion to Seraphina, the book that started it all. Read this book if you absolutely feel the need for completion. The ending was well done, with a bittersweet closer that struck the perfect tune, but the journey there may be easy or hard depending on what you are expecting out of this novel.
Other reviews in this series:
Seraphina (Book 1)
The BiblioSanctum 
Oh too bad! I’ve heard good things about this series, I guess it’s that dreaded second book slump. I’m reading a second book right now too and really struggling with it. Must be going around:-D
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This is just a duology, so perhaps that’s part of the problem – it’s not just a continuation, it had to have a satisfactory end and it was too much to tie together.
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I was one of those who hated it 😉 I could not even finish
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Yeah, I knew someone else on my blog feed who couldn’t finish so you’re not the only one.
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“meandering” is a good word. You did much better than I did, but reading your review, I have no regrets marking this one DNF.
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I listened to the audio of this, maybe that’s why I did better.
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Nope. I also had the audiobook. 🙂
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GAH! I wrote an entire comment and something happened and it disappeared. Sorry if you get both 😦
Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to your review of this one! I’m sorry you didn’t like it more.
I agree on the pacing and lenght issues – I would have preferred this book be shorter by 200 pages, and definitely not stretched into two parts.
And I loved seeing Seraphina grow, she’s a great character despite the flaws of the story. I liked the series overall.
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I think that was the biggest redeeming factor of this series – I really liked how Seraphina grew by leaps and bounds, I liked her much better as a character here than in the first book.
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I agree it was too long and meandered but I think having fine this one as audio it helped me see past that. Sorry your enjoyment of wasn’t more.
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Funny enough, I did do the audiobook for this – now I hate to think how I would have felt if I didn’t!
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I think it meandered a bit too. Even though I liked it, there was a lot to be desired in terms of plotting. I almost gave up after the first 100 pages because nothing of importance was happening and I could have cared less. And Jannoula was kind of thrown in, with a lot of flashbacks that maybe should have been set in the first book? It felt like there was a definite plan for how the series would go, and then there was a change after the first book was published. They didn’t necessarily fit well together as a duology.
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I agree the villain in this didn’t really “fit”. I think you’ve hit upon why I felt this way with the flashbacks. Yes, events of such import I would have figured them to be at least mentioned in the first book, if not focused on in detail. Now it just feel shoehorned in.
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Awwwww. Sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy Shadow Scale, Mogsy. I was in the “love it” side of the fence for this one. I didn’t mind the pacing, length, or all the different plot pieces, and a number of scenes or quotes sent me laughing until my ribs hurt. Like you said at the end of your review, though, readers will have different reactions depending on their expectations for the book.
Oddly enough, though, your overall thoughts on Shadow Scale kind of echo my feelings about the second Avengers movie. But that’s a whole other arena…
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Haven’t seen it yet! But, the way I feel about all the Marvel movies as of late, it probably wouldn’t surprise me if I end up feeling the same as you 🙂
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I’ve actually liked most of the Marvel movies up until this point. The two Captain America movies and the first Avengers film are probably my favorites of the bunch. But yeah… we’ll have to see from here. My brother showed me a trailer for Ant-Man yesterday, and… well, I’m still not sure what to think of it.
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LOL, I finally just watched the second Cap movie this last Saturday! It was all right, I actually liked it better than the first one and certainly more than the Iron Man and Thor movies, etc. Like you said, probably the better of the bunch. I was actually very skeptical about Ant-Man, but the trailer made me think it could work!
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How disheartening! I’m going to be reading this one either this month or next, but it’s good to know that it’s meandering. I’ll be sure to have a very large cup of tea before I begin reading. Hopefully that will keep me alert!
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I’m pretty sure you’ll like it better than me. Like I said in the review, expectations are going to play into how you feel, and mine were very different and probably even unreasonably high 😛
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Well, I see a few of you suggesting to shorten the book by 200 pages (!). Now I would say that’s enough to deter anyone from reading it. It sure deters me.
No matter how good a story is, watering it down that much can’t do any good, and I honestly don’t see how the author didn’t see that. I understand not realising the story is 40-50 pages too long. But 200 pages?
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I think it could happen and definitely happens. Look at Stephen King and The Stand, lol. Even now I think the first published version minus the hundreds of pages his editor took out is better than the re-released “uncut” version, despite the latter being the author’s original vision. True it might not necessarily be better in the case of Shadow Scale, I think there were more problems with it than just simple cutting can fix. But regarding whether or not authors can go overboard with length? Definitely possible 🙂
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I know. Do we want to talk about George Martin? 😉 Some passages are so unnecessary long I nearly gave up on the first book. I never read the following ones.
This said, I still think a writer should be aware whenter he/she goes too far. Or at least, they should have sense enough to ask for opinions.
But then, hey, it’s probably just me. Lots of people like Martin’s stories the way they are 😉
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Oh I can definitely agree on Martin too. Seriously, I think the guy has written himself into a corner 😛
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