Book review: The Second Shadow by Elizabeth Arroyo

Jake thought being demon meant a shredded humanity, stripped of all human emotion. Chaos and self-preservation dominates a demon’s instincts. But Jake feels every ounce of pain and despair around him. 

And it’s driving him deeper into Hell.

Gabby’s choice to save him last summer left a fissure in Hell’s gate that released a malevolent evil. When Jake’s given a mission by the demons to shadow a human girl who may know the whereabouts of an ethereal weapon, he doesn’t expect to see Gabby. But Fate has her own agenda.

When Jake and Gabby are thrown together on a camping trip with a group of delinquent teens, Jake begins to grapple with the haunting choices he made in the past. When the evil finds them, the group begins to battle for their lives, alliances are made, and truths revealed. 

As the evil begins to influence Jake, he questions his link to the demons, his purpose, and his love for Gabby. 

But the answers to those questions are only found in Hell. And it may cost him his soul.

A free copy was given to me in return for an honest review.

The Second Shadow is the sequel to The Second Sign, which I read not long ago.  Most of what I have to say is that the sequel is even better than the original.  The only problems I really had with it were surface errors, mostly typos and the whole ‘use a word that’s close to what you mean’ mistake.  There were also a few things that I felt like should’ve been revealed in the first book rather than the second.  It was a bit rushed at times, throwing realizations and information on you with little time to really digest it because it’s in the middle of the action and the characters have to get on with things.

Other than that, the story is well-put together.  There’s obvious effort in the lore, taking class Christian mythology and fitting it together with Arroyo’s own ideas and interpretations.  And like in the first book, she was definitely not afraid to show the more graphic scenes.  Descriptions of Erra’s influence on Gabby make your skin crawl (literally in poor Gabby’s case) and Alexi’s torture in hell doesn’t pull any punches in its descriptions.  I don’t usually enjoy graphic things like this, but I feel like it would’ve lost something if it weren’t all there.

And some of it is just surreal.  Jake has moments where he slips into Hell, or something like that.  I can’t even really tell what’s happening, but I have the feeling that’s exactly how I’m supposed to feel.

All-in-all, I’d have to say it’s a successful sequel.  The ending also leaves room for another book if that’s what Arroyo has planned, but unlike so many other books, it doesn’t just simply drop off and make you think “Wait, where the rest of it?” So, happy reading!

Book review: The Second Sign by Elizabeth Arroyo

Bred to believe in the war between angels and demons, Gabby has come to the conclusion that love is responsible for war, jealousy, and all the other deadly sins she can think of. So when she’s exiled to the middle of nowhere for getting kicked out of her fifth school for fighting, she doesn't expect to meet Jake. Much less fall in love. But Jake is quickly drawn to the eerie beauty of her violet eyes while Gabby is unsettled by their undeniable connection.

When a demon guardian comes to collect her soul, she refuses to give it up. She’s not a demon. She can’t be. Her father and twin brother are angels. The demon gives Gabby twenty-four hours to decide her allegiance, and then starts killing her short list of friends, leaving a message behind: She is the Second Sign.

As Gabby and Jake begin to unravel the mystery behind the Second Sign, she learns Jake may be the key to saving her soul. But it means a sacrifice has to be made that will change their lives forever.

This book was given to me for free in return for an honest review.

Well, it seems the next few books I’m reviewing will be Christian mythos ones; I have the sequel to The Blessed after this, and the sequel to this book after that.  Is basing books around Christian mythology becoming more popular in the last few years?  I mean I’ve seen it before with the Hush, Hush series and its angels, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise me.  And it is a welcome change from all the vampires.

I had mixed feelings about The Second Sign.  On the one hand, for most of the book, it’s pretty well-written, and I didn’t find myself annoyed with the main characters, which is always a plus.  The deeper you get, the more complex the plot gets, and you realize just how intricately the author has worked on weaving this together so that nothing is pointless and everyone has a role to play.  It also doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to violence, which can be seen as a plus for people who are tired of things always getting solved in a fade-to-black or in an easier way.  For God’s sake, a girl gets her limbs pulled off her body one-by-one.  I couldn’t help but wince at that.

There are a few things that bugged me about the story, though.  Sometimes the fight scenes got so convoluted that I had no idea what was going on anymore.  There are times when things don’t add up or the plot doesn’t quite fit, such as how Jake and Jenna got all the way from California to Maine in so little time when all they had was a truck.  Traveling at all seems to be glossed over considering the book runs into the same problem with their father when he goes to see them; if he was in California, how’d he get to coastal Maine in just a few hours?  And there’s the problem that the book has the tendency to use words that are very similar to what should actually be used but aren’t that word, which throws things off.  Considering how often it happens, I’d have to say the editing job wasn’t quite up to par.

All-in-all an okay book.  It gets points for taking place in Maine, since so few books do.  Despite its flaws I’d say it’s worth a read.