What do you think?
Rate this book
Shadow People
Gabriel, Lydia, Alex, and Hollis are four totally different teenagers who were thrown together by accident. Or maybe they were destined to meet, for they all share emotions that unite them—loneliness, frustration,
and anger. Apart they are ordinary enough, unremarkable and not much noticed. Together, in the dark of night, they are drawn to violence like moths to a flame. Gem is a girl whose path crosses theirs when she falls in love with Gabriel. Will the whirlpool of destruction swallow her, too?
and anger. Apart they are ordinary enough, unremarkable and not much noticed. Together, in the dark of night, they are drawn to violence like moths to a flame. Gem is a girl whose path crosses theirs when she falls in love with Gabriel. Will the whirlpool of destruction swallow her, too?
- GenresYoung AdultTeen
288 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
5 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Joyce McDonald
15 books18 followersThere is more than one author with this name
Born in San Francisco, CA, and raised in Chatham, NJ, Joyce McDonald received her BA and MA from the University of Iowa, and went on to complete her Ph.D. at Drew University. She is the author of several books for children and young adults, among them the award winning Swallowing Stones, and the Edgar Award Nominated Shades of Simon Gray. She has taught at East Stroudsburg University in PA, Drew University in NJ, and is currently on the faculty of Spaulding University's Brief-residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, KY. For over ten years, Joyce has served on the Rutgers Unversity Council on Children's Literature. She and her husband live in Forks Township, PA.
Born in San Francisco, CA, and raised in Chatham, NJ, Joyce McDonald received her BA and MA from the University of Iowa, and went on to complete her Ph.D. at Drew University. She is the author of several books for children and young adults, among them the award winning Swallowing Stones, and the Edgar Award Nominated Shades of Simon Gray. She has taught at East Stroudsburg University in PA, Drew University in NJ, and is currently on the faculty of Spaulding University's Brief-residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, KY. For over ten years, Joyce has served on the Rutgers Unversity Council on Children's Literature. She and her husband live in Forks Township, PA.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 29, 2017
This book was quite an interesting plot following four teenagers Gabriel, Lydia, Alex and Hollis in a thrilling dark mission. I really enjoyed reading this book and wish the author would have continued with these characters in a sequel , and I recommend this book to anyone.
October 4, 2019
Have you ever been so bored that you do something dumb and get in trouble? That's what happens in Shadow People by Joyce Mcdonald. The book is set in a small town in New Jersey. The four main characters find themselves bored and having nothing to do, so they decide to commit crimes.
The book has four main characters: Lydia, Hollis, Gabriel, and Alec. the characters were the thing I liked the most about the book. You get a perspective from all the characters not just one. The characters all have their own problems but don't share them with each other. They're well rounded and interesting in their own ways The one thing I didn't like about the book.
There was only one bad thing in have to say about the book. The ending is so stale. It doesn't end happy, sad, it just ends. You don't find out what happens the book just ends. Overall I feel like Shadow people is a great book with lots of action, mystery, and love. It hit all the right spots for me. If you like books with lots of details you would love this book. Once you start reading it’s hard to stop.
The book has four main characters: Lydia, Hollis, Gabriel, and Alec. the characters were the thing I liked the most about the book. You get a perspective from all the characters not just one. The characters all have their own problems but don't share them with each other. They're well rounded and interesting in their own ways The one thing I didn't like about the book.
There was only one bad thing in have to say about the book. The ending is so stale. It doesn't end happy, sad, it just ends. You don't find out what happens the book just ends. Overall I feel like Shadow people is a great book with lots of action, mystery, and love. It hit all the right spots for me. If you like books with lots of details you would love this book. Once you start reading it’s hard to stop.
Read
April 2, 2020She wrote "Swallowing Stones" (excellent!), so I had big hopes. Halfway into the first chapter, I already had the "oh-oh - I'm going to care way too much about some of these characters, and bad stuff is going to happen to them" feeling. And, it's no mystery about the bad stuff, the novel's in flash back, and all the bad stuff happens pretty much on page one.
It's difficult to read (especially if you're a big wimp like me) because everything just keeps getting worse and worse. Gabriel's a wreck, looking for revenge since his brother was murdered. Lydia's father is a survivalist freak who basically imprisons the family. Alex is just a hateful, bad-news loser, and Hollis is a super geek freak who manipulates the rest of them.
It actually got better, and wound up being excellent!
It's difficult to read (especially if you're a big wimp like me) because everything just keeps getting worse and worse. Gabriel's a wreck, looking for revenge since his brother was murdered. Lydia's father is a survivalist freak who basically imprisons the family. Alex is just a hateful, bad-news loser, and Hollis is a super geek freak who manipulates the rest of them.
It actually got better, and wound up being excellent!
June 3, 2018
I tend to not fully read the summary of the book because they sometimes give away major plot points. By the title and the few sentences I read, I assumed this book would be about something supernatural which turned out to not be the case but I still genuinely enjoyed this book. I kept wanting to know what was going to happen next and I finished it in one day. I loved all of the characters and backstories.
December 7, 2017
My rating was influenced mainly by my inability to focus while reading this piece of fiction. (If this review comes off unfocused, then you'll understand why.) I was left on shaky ground when I finished Shadow People.
It was very dense, to the point where it almost made me nauseous with the superfluous side backstories -- this novel could have benefited from expansion (side note: Make it a series and give what it is due to the characters, have the readers grow to love them and understand their realities, and the sequences of their histories to become the fallible catalysts of intrigue that makes reading so fun to read), because in this work? All the details and the plot and the point-of-view chapters between the characters were crammed into less than 300 pages, and the so-called ending was summed up in two pages (I couldn't believe that was the end and the way out of the forest of confusion when I got to it. I think I may have uttered the word 'seriously' aloud with such disgust that I read it two more times just to make sure that was the conclusion. And it was. So disheartening.) The struggle to get there was so real that I recall reading this when I was 12 and not being able to remember the ending, let alone the synopsis of the whole darn thing. And it really isn't that confusing of a story. It's straightforward, really, it is. There is just no consistent flow and the words feel like they are just there. And there are a lot of them. Each chapter transition feels like wearing itchy sweaters -- why the author/editor decided to handle the chronological contents the way they did is beyond me. Just as soon as you begin to visualize the chapter, and what is described -- it's lost in vague paragraphs about murky reveries and thought processes, akin to wading through brain fog with a start-and-stall engine.
I've since picked it up again nearing 30, and I literally had to force myself to read down the pages rather than skim all the nonsense of explaining/building the relationships between these characters, and hoping that by the time conflict hits the fan at the climax, I'm invested enough in their thin personalities and cliche profiles to ignore what is weak writing when it comes to actions of driving the plot forward. Well, I don't feel for any of them. (I'm only curious, and having to read over 200 pages, I'd like to sate that curiosity by finding their outcomes.. )However, I always finish what I start when it comes to matters of books and I am thankful I finished it for the second time in my life. Now I can donate it to some person who hopefully finds the merit in the unlucky situations of 5 atypical alternative teenagers in the woods with entirely too much time (and trust/neglect of adults) on their hands.
It was very dense, to the point where it almost made me nauseous with the superfluous side backstories -- this novel could have benefited from expansion (side note: Make it a series and give what it is due to the characters, have the readers grow to love them and understand their realities, and the sequences of their histories to become the fallible catalysts of intrigue that makes reading so fun to read), because in this work? All the details and the plot and the point-of-view chapters between the characters were crammed into less than 300 pages, and the so-called ending was summed up in two pages (I couldn't believe that was the end and the way out of the forest of confusion when I got to it. I think I may have uttered the word 'seriously' aloud with such disgust that I read it two more times just to make sure that was the conclusion. And it was. So disheartening.) The struggle to get there was so real that I recall reading this when I was 12 and not being able to remember the ending, let alone the synopsis of the whole darn thing. And it really isn't that confusing of a story. It's straightforward, really, it is. There is just no consistent flow and the words feel like they are just there. And there are a lot of them. Each chapter transition feels like wearing itchy sweaters -- why the author/editor decided to handle the chronological contents the way they did is beyond me. Just as soon as you begin to visualize the chapter, and what is described -- it's lost in vague paragraphs about murky reveries and thought processes, akin to wading through brain fog with a start-and-stall engine.
I've since picked it up again nearing 30, and I literally had to force myself to read down the pages rather than skim all the nonsense of explaining/building the relationships between these characters, and hoping that by the time conflict hits the fan at the climax, I'm invested enough in their thin personalities and cliche profiles to ignore what is weak writing when it comes to actions of driving the plot forward. Well, I don't feel for any of them. (I'm only curious, and having to read over 200 pages, I'd like to sate that curiosity by finding their outcomes.. )However, I always finish what I start when it comes to matters of books and I am thankful I finished it for the second time in my life. Now I can donate it to some person who hopefully finds the merit in the unlucky situations of 5 atypical alternative teenagers in the woods with entirely too much time (and trust/neglect of adults) on their hands.
August 25, 2008
I decided to follow up "Beach Books On A Bus" with a little back-to-school exercise. Shadow People is a book that my baby brother read when he was in high school (and when I was 27 and briefly moved back home with mom). Since I had never heard of it, I asked him how it was and he said "pretty good" - which is pretty high praise coming from a fourteen-year-old. Somehow his copy of the book ended up in my possession, and now I've finally gotten around to reading it.
So it's a YA (young adult) novel, which is a genre I have no beef with whatsoever. My beef with this particular YA novel was that it felt so blatantly as if it had been written for use by high school English teachers. There are gratuitous references to Hamlet, for instance - and since everyone has to read Hamlet in high school, clearly this book can be part of the same unit. It features a lot of modern, realistic elements so as to be accessible to "the kids" but it treads pretty lightly - lots of discussion of divorce and the effects it has on kids, which is a safe subject, and only the vaguest hints at stuff like drugs and sex, which are sure ways to get a book banned from school libraries.
I had to admit, beyond the shameless appeals to every 10th grade English teacher, the story did portray the characters sympathetically, especially the girl whose father had become a survivalist nut, turning the family home into a military-like compound dominated by his own paranoia and his wife's pharmaceutically-aided spaciness - a little more interesting and provocative than the afterschool-special standbys of "my dad's an alcoholic" or "my mom left us to spend more time on her career." (Those tropes show up as well, but at least there was one fresh approach in the mix.)
One final note of interest: the book is copyright 2000, and involves some unmoored kids slowly progressing from petty vandalism to acts of true terrorism thanks to the manipulations of the smartest and creepiest of the bunch. It reminded me a lot of the themes of The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's version of the Joker, but interestingly Shadow People actually predates the 9/11 era. I doubt very many teachers would find it appropriate these days.
In honor of reading a book that my baby brother read in high school, this week I'll be adding to my "read" shelf several other novels that I read back when I was in high school. Ah, the classics.
So it's a YA (young adult) novel, which is a genre I have no beef with whatsoever. My beef with this particular YA novel was that it felt so blatantly as if it had been written for use by high school English teachers. There are gratuitous references to Hamlet, for instance - and since everyone has to read Hamlet in high school, clearly this book can be part of the same unit. It features a lot of modern, realistic elements so as to be accessible to "the kids" but it treads pretty lightly - lots of discussion of divorce and the effects it has on kids, which is a safe subject, and only the vaguest hints at stuff like drugs and sex, which are sure ways to get a book banned from school libraries.
I had to admit, beyond the shameless appeals to every 10th grade English teacher, the story did portray the characters sympathetically, especially the girl whose father had become a survivalist nut, turning the family home into a military-like compound dominated by his own paranoia and his wife's pharmaceutically-aided spaciness - a little more interesting and provocative than the afterschool-special standbys of "my dad's an alcoholic" or "my mom left us to spend more time on her career." (Those tropes show up as well, but at least there was one fresh approach in the mix.)
One final note of interest: the book is copyright 2000, and involves some unmoored kids slowly progressing from petty vandalism to acts of true terrorism thanks to the manipulations of the smartest and creepiest of the bunch. It reminded me a lot of the themes of The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's version of the Joker, but interestingly Shadow People actually predates the 9/11 era. I doubt very many teachers would find it appropriate these days.
In honor of reading a book that my baby brother read in high school, this week I'll be adding to my "read" shelf several other novels that I read back when I was in high school. Ah, the classics.
April 3, 2014
I very rarely find myself satisfied with the endings of books anymore, hopefully its only been bad luck and coincidence. The book over all was a very easy read and had good insight on the characters thoughts and emotions. "Shadow People" is the title and as a result I expected them to be quite a big concept in the book, however; they were only mentioned a few times and through the end they were never explained. I can only assume that the "shadow people" Gabriel kept seeing at night were the figments of his imagination created by his mind as a result of the remorse over the loss of his brother. Justice is not served in the end, but hey it wasn't a fairy tale so that wasn't a biggie for me. My biggest pet peeve though that this author indeed did, was give no insight to the future of these individuals. Overall though, I'd recommend it as an entertaining easy read. And I don't know if anyone will even read this but I definitely recommend the Good reads app, when it comes it comments and reviews it just simplifies life.
April 1, 2016
The Book the Shadow people is about Gabriel, a senior at his high school who had just moved from the city and got mixed up in a gang of sorts, and a double love interest. The book the Shadow People was rather predictable, but still thrilling. The book is a fun read but can get repetitive as the characters stay static and caught in their own problems that always seem to reoccur, such as the death of Gabriel's brother which is always present in the book and becomes dull, and the repeated notion of hating country life which also dulls.
January 17, 2012
The fictional book Shadow people by Joyce McDonal gives four seemingly real life characters as she puts them to the test of revenge, and lonely. You'll get hook form the start where you begin trashing this store then wind up with a plot that will make you guess until the end. Joyce excels telling the lifes of a teenager gang that takes it to the extreme.
June 6, 2012
This was an edgy story and I ripped through it in no time. The individual teen characters were well developed. There was a sense of foreboding that keeps you engaged and it was an overall satisfying read. I thought the end was too abrupt but maybe that was because I wanted the story to keep going.
May 12, 2009
Wow. This book had really good description of hate. Kids form a gang and blow up things and stuff.
June 23, 2009
This was an amazing book. It was so interesting. The plot was so riveting, and the ending was so bitterly ironic. I loved this book!!!
October 21, 2011
By breaking down the book's storyline into each individual character's thoughts and perceptions of the events going on, Joyce McDonald put together a very captivating story together.
Read
November 5, 2018(spoiler alert) Gabriel, Lydia, Alec, and Hollis' paths are all tied together one night when the three boys come across Lydia hiding away and soon start causing much mischief eventually pulling in Gem who just wanted to be with Gabriel. I feel the characters were very well developed and that the story all fell into line very fluid. Beside's that the book was hard to stop reading it was just event after event and it was always interesting. I would 100% recomend this to anyone willing to read young adult books.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews