Audio: Shadowshaper - Daniel Jose Older

Sierra Santiago was looking forward to a fun summer of making art, hanging out with her friends, and skating around Brooklyn. But then a weird zombie guy crashes the first party of the season. Sierra's near-comatose abuelo begins to say "No importa" over and over. And when the graffiti murals in Bed-Stuy start to weep.... Well, something stranger than the usual New York mayhem is going on.

Sierra soon discovers a supernatural order called the Shadowshapers, who connect with spirits via paintings, music, and stories. Her grandfather once shared the order's secrets with an anthropologist, Dr. Jonathan Wick, who turned the Caribbean magic to his own foul ends. Now Wick wants to become the ultimate Shadowshaper by killing all the others, one by one. With the help of her friends and the hot graffiti artist Robbie, Sierra must dodge Wick's supernatural creations, harness her own Shadowshaping abilities, and save her family's past, present, and future. 

Audiobook,  7 h
Published 2015 by Scholastic Audio
Shadowshaper #1
YA UF

My thoughts:
There was this song that she kept humming and I all I was thinking is that I need that song. So yes the narrator sure did well there, managing to stick a song that is not a song in my head. I kept humming it afterwards.

Sierra is a normal teen. She loves to paint and is doing a mural. And then things start to change.

Her grandfather starts saying strange things, before he drifts back into his muddled after stroke state.

What are the shadowshapers? Who are the men in the picture? Why must she meet Robbie? What is going on!?

And yes why do people never explain things!! I know that it is a good premise for a story, but come on, this kid is almost killed and no one can tell her what they know.

I liked the magic in this one. Spirits, paintings and more. It was fascinating. I liked the mystery that unravelled, even if it would have unraveled faster if someone had told her things.

The book also deals with other things. How one street in Brooklyn can be her home, and then another street is suddenly all white with cute coffeeshops and hipsters that give her the eye. And how her own aunt is racist and says things that she can't be with anyone darker than the sole of her foot. And how her hair is messy, so her own aunt is racist against her. Dang that aunt.

The book compared this to another book, ugh, that almost destroyed it. NO, it was much better. It never felt you know paranormal YA. Oh you know what I mean. It was different, it was real and that magic slowly came  in. Urban fantasy.

Anika Noni Rose 

She did a great job and that song, love it still, I can hum it all sudden.