I see a lot of people saying that it started out slow but picked up for them. While thats great for them, it wasnt the case for me. The world building was good, but the plot was slow throughout and the characters seemed shallow. I can see how someone would like it, but it wasnt for me.

I guess that book is good? I wasn't a big fan of it. The writing was kinda good but it felt so... Too much? I don't know how to phrase it but it was a lot. Too much of a lot for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

There was a slow start to this book, but about a third of the way into it I got hooked. I could not stop reading and I fell in love with the characters. The way the story ended fell a little flat, I'm still excited to read the next book, but I think this book could've ended a little better.

This was not for me, personally. The characters felt a bit immature. Shallow relationship developments & backstories. Confusing dialogue throughout. I received this eARC through NetGalley for my unbiased review. Thank you.

I really liked the premise of this book but it seemed to go from action to boring and back and forth and I just plain lost interest. The main characters were engaging, but the supporting characters seemed to fade into the background, and the story never seemed to really find its feet. Great potential but it could use another editing to flesh out parts of the story and remove some irrelevant bits.

The story follows 18-year-old Mandalyn who knows nothing of her dead mother except that she tried to kill her when she was a baby. She lives with her father, a strict disciplinarian who controls just about every aspect of Mandalyn's life.

Mandalyn is top of her class, next to Will, that is. Her sole goal is to crush him and win the coveted spot of valedictorian.

But when Mandalyn suddenly begins seeing Will and a few other classmates as dangerous, deranged criminals her world is flipped on its head. How can these people be murders, criminals, or psychopaths when they are now the only family she can truly count on? And is she destined to be a criminal too?

Mandalyn (or Andi for short) soon learns that everything she thought was true, is not. Her father is not who she thought he was, her mother may not really be dead, her classmates that were once just competition to her may actually be her best friends, and her greatness may lie in her powers and her heart, not in her academic excellence.

it was not for me, i recommended it to some of my friends, and they rated it 4/5 5/5 stars and i can get why they like it. it might be just me, as i was going through a hard time reading anything. I enjoyed myself but cannot remember much of it other then that.

I really enjoyed this book, I read it in a day so that says a lot. The story is a dystopian thriller, set in a world which has been “developed” to the extreme, especially for Mandalyn. Her father works for HAI, the group overseeing the developed world. Through the constant monitoring from her life pod, her every move is monitored to ensure she stays on track to perfection, to follow the plan for her to join her father at HAI. Everything is restricted and monitored, from sleep, water usage and food as well as heart rate, blood pressure and, of course, location!
One day at “Learning station” (the new term for school!) herself thrown into a confusing situation with her chief rival, her crush and a girl from her station that she has actually never noticed. All 4 suddenly become aware of each other and are alerted to the apparent dangerous potential they all have. As they struggle to find out what is going on and why they are being targeted, they find themselves working with another similar group in the same position. Both groups find themselves working together through some pretty traumatic events, gradually finding out that each member of the group have different gifts, could you his be the reason they are being hunted?
This book has some very well developed characters, including Mandalyn’s Arial pod (car) ChaWanda, who is extremely sassy and has some great one liners! This book focuses a lot on trust and friendship as well as focusing on accepting people for who they are at their core rather than being divided by differences.
I absolutely love the fact that even in the dystopian setting of 2175, they still have 80s themed night clubs! I’m glad to see that something never change! This has set up the second book “Shadows of Fire and Death” amazingly, and I cannot wait to read it.

** spoiler alert ** I really wanted to like this book. The summary makes it sound absolutely fantastic, but I felt that the execution fell flat in the end. It's supposed to be a dystopian thriller, but it didn't feel like all of the elements were tied together well enough. At times when characters were supposed to be in danger, there was a stark lack of urgency to get away from danger. Then the romance subplot took over towards the end. I'll probably read the second book at some point, but the ending of this one made me fall asleep.

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

I enjoy dystopian fiction and this was a good read. I was a little confused at times and felt like there could've been a little more explanation.

I look forward to the next book in the series to see where this goes.

This was a free copy via NetGalley.

I received this ARC for free from NetGalley.

I’m terrible at summaries so this is always the hardest part of a review to write, but in the case of this book I find it even harder than usual. There’s a lot to this story while also being very little of consequence, so it’s hard to summarize the actual plot. What I can say is that this story takes place many years in the future, and technology has advanced in many ways but not in others. This is very much a dystopian story with children who have magic. Beyond that, I couldn’t say much about the world itself.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a little sick, but I found myself slightly confused during parts of the dialogue, unable to easily tell who was speaking. Which might not have been so bad, if the dialogue made more sense overall. But to me it seemed like the conversations jumped around, and what someone said didn’t always follow what they should have been replying to.

This confusion was also present in the story itself, although not as often. But what people chose to do often left me confused. They changed their minds with no real explanation or indication of why. The story just continued on.

That said, this was a quick read. And the story was interesting enough to finish, if for no other reason than that there are lots of questions involved (like the identity of the main character’s mother). Unfortunately, I don’t feel the ending gave me any answers at all. I understand that that’s supposed to make me want to read an inevitable sequel, but instead I just feel annoyed. I don’t want to have to read another book to feel like I had even one of my questions answered.

If you like insta-love, that’s definitely in this book. I think it’s maybe supposed to be more enemies to lovers, but we get almost none of them being enemies before they’re in love, so to me it felt instant. It also felt really shallow. All the relationships (including friendships) in this book happen so quickly, but are talked about like they’re incredibly deep and meaningful from the start.

The writing itself is… Okay. I appreciated that the author definitely knew how to write the cold, unfeeling father quite well (he’s probably the most interesting character in the novel to me), but I didn’t love most of this book. Maybe one day I’ll read another book by this author to see if they improve, but it likely won’t be the sequel to this one. This just wasn’t for me.

This story was a nice sci-fi /utopian dystopian story with a sweet teenage romance.
For the most part this book held my attention the whole way. I am a huge fan of sci-fi “utopian” societies. This was a nice treat.

Likes:
- Good setting in a futuristic “utopian” society.
- Secret organizations
- Super humans
- Found family
- Mild romance ( no more than some kissing and sweet words)
- Super suspenseful action scenes.
- Diverse set of characters and backgrounds.

Dislikes:
- Sometimes the discussions between characters was repetitive.
- sometimes banter between characters seemed unnatural.
- Hard to tell when one scene was transitioning to another scene. It was a little confusing. ( this issue seems to clear up as the book goes on)

Overall I liked the adventure and I cannot wait to find out what happens in the next book!

Thank you to NetGalley for giving this ARC, and this doesn’t influence my review.
Tropes: NA sci-fi/dystopian romance, hate to love, academic rivals to lovers
Mannn when I tell you I was here for the academic rivals to lovers, like…. Man’s greeted her with a middle finger. We love!!! And he watches her. All the time 😳
Chemistry🤌🏾 mwah. Also, he said that he would want to know what was going on in her head sometimes!!??? Swoooon.
The plot was very riveting and interesting, and I loved the FMC’s growing friendship with the group.

The first sentence really caught me off-guard, literally. This book is an easy read. You’ll definitely finish it ahead of time. It really caught my attention especially I like fantasy. There were dialogues that are unnecessary though or maybe the author made it for us the readers understand the details more (kudos!). I find the Protagonist little annoying but it really reflects her personality as girl who is strictly guarded by his father. I was shook when Andi and Will is the love team the author created. I really liked TL for Andi though because of his words of affirmation but Will is definitely more caring. I also love the adrenaline rush when Will killed with his parents. I was shook with that scene.

I am not a fan of Enemies to Lovers but this one is exempted. The chemistry of the Andi and Will is good. I was also shook of the little spice they had LOL.

I also notice that some of the powers of the kids are some not effective for someone who can possess such gifts. Maybe we’ll see more action in the next book? I wish.

I gave this book a 3.5 - 4 stars. Great read! Waiting for the next book! Kudos!
Thank you giving me an opportunity to read this book thru NetGalley.

Finally, a main character named Andi! ❤️

This book was great. I was only about halfway done, and I was already recommending it to my students (one of which bought the book immediately)!

Secrets of Shadows and Lies is a YA Dystopian novel very reminiscent of Matched and Divergent. I loved both of those series, and I can’t wait to see where the author takes us next as she concludes the duopoly!

I took off one star because I’m not sure exactly where the climax was in this book. It almost felt like the author must have written this full story, and then decided to split it into two books. Either way, I’m impatiently waiting on the next!!