A review by alexauthorshay
Lord of the Shadows by Darren Shan

2.0

Definitely the most painful of all the books so far. Melodramatic, gimmicky twists, and in terms of actual plot progression nothing much happens. They run into Steve multiple times but there are no real fights until the very end, which is cut off in the middle of things instead of following a normal story arc, and cut off with perhaps the most groan-worthy 'twist' of the whole series. Were these book not so quick to read (I can finish them in a day or two if I have lots of time) I probably would have stopped a long time ago, but I'm <i>just</i> curious enough to know how things turn out to finish the last book. I have a bad feeling there's some sort of deus ex machina twist ending in store given how hard they've been hammering the 'only two fates are possible and they both are bad' thing. It actually reminds me a little bit of HP where the search for the horcruxes is crammed into the last 2 books instead of spaced out more evenly so all the actually plot relevant stuff (in terms of defeating the bad guy) doesn't happen until near the end of the entire series.