Now before you start wondering, yes, McKinley’s books are regularly shelved in the YA aisle (well, aside from Deerskin), but never before has one taken place in a high school, starring a heroine who totes her overlarge Algebra book and worries about affording college, even as she meets a tall, dark, mysterious, and ridiculously good-looking boy who is, of course, totally into her from the word go. I mean, it’s Robin McKinley – have I ever not liked a Robin McKinley book, I ask you? But interestingly, in a lot of ways Shadows is the most bouncy, unabashedly TEEN thing McKinley has ever written, and it was very fun to see her mesh her usual enveloping fantasy style with a younger, more modern vibe. Well, we all know how this review is going to end. And although the two are supposed to be incompatible, Maggie’s discovering the world will need both to survive. In this dangerously unstable world, neither science nor magic has the necessary answers, but a truce between them is impossible. until earth-shattering events force her to depend on Val and his shadows.

He’s from Oldworld too – and he’s heard of Maggie’s stepfather, and has a guess about Val’s shadows. Then Maggie meets Casimir, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. The magic-carrying gene was disabled two generations ago, back when Maggie’s great-grandmother was a notable magician. But – more importantly – what are the huge, horrible, jagged, jumpy shadows following him around? Magic is illegal in Newworld, which is all about science. Val is from Oldworld, where they still use magic, and he won’t have any tech in his office-shed behind the house. Maggie knows something’s off about Val, her mom’s new husband.

Shadows by robin mckinley