Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

Your Shadow Half Remains was okay. It's not a bad book by any means, it was just nothing special for me. The world takes place during a pandemic so I wasn't able to separate it from COVID and I think that affected my enjoyment. I did really like the unreliable narrator element though.

This brief novel gives you the disturbing experience of being plunked down in the midst of a global pandemic where to make eye contact means certain death. A tense, unsettling read - I wasn't sure what was going on all the time, but I definitely won't forget this one.

Combine elements of the Covid pandemic, Bird Box, and a touch of early Walking Dead.
Here you have Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine.
Thank you to Tor Nightfire and Netgalley for my eARC.
This slim volume is deceptively packed. It's insane. And I mean that in the best way.
I adored the author's writing style, which is lovely, lonely, and dark. It's so matter-of-fact in describing a horrific world where a virus of sorts turns humans to flesh-eating madness.
The best anyone knows is it's caused by looking at faces, eyes. Perhaps even one's own, the "rules" aren't clear. Hiding away from all human contact (or worse) has become the norm for survival.
But then Riley meets Ellis, a new neighbour to her area. Boundaries are tested in the overwhelming need for connection.
And with that, we have my first five-star read of 2024. There's so much food for thought here, though be aware of the bleak, violent imagery and body horror within.
Very much recommended!
For release on Feb. 6.

I loved Your Shadow Half Remains! Both the ebook and audiobook were excellent. Sunny Moraine's writing style is almost lyrical, and they have such a mastery of mood and ambiance. I thoroughly enjoyed Riley as an unreliable narrator. The ambiguity was so well done that from the mid-point on, I started to question if I was misremembering what I had read (yes, this book will gaslight you). I wish there was a bit more clarity at the end, and we knew what version of Riley's reality was real. Despite being set in the aftermath of a pandemic, it didn't feel preachy or like a Covid-fic. This is one of those books that will have you staring at your wall after finishing it, and certain scenes stayed with me in the ensuing days. Overall, I highly recommend this novel. I got the audiobook, and it was phenomenal as well.

This book is beautifully written and I stopped a few times to go back over a section because of the way something was described or conveyed. Definitely one of the more beautiful apocalypse stories around. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the copy.

This was just okay. I really enjoyed the idea behind the book and felt like it could be a good post-apocalyptic horror story, but the writing itself was all over the place and I felt very disconnected to the M.C. I was also a bit confused about the tone of language used, the M.C. (We are unsure of her age) seems to be an adult age but she talks and acts like a pre-teen? There were so many weird f-bombs throughout the book that I felt like I was reading a 13-year old’s diary. The chapters were pretty short so I felt like I flew through this book, but I couldn’t really tell you what it was about or how it even ended.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the majority of the time I spent reading this book. I was immediately hooked by Sunny Moraine's perfectly crafted portrait of a mind eroded by years of isolation.
/The world is in chaos, has been for some time, have the rules changed? We just have to go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over, right?/

Riley's found a way to survive after the world was turned upside down and people can no longer meet each other's eyes without risk of being thrown into a feral, murderous rage. It's the end of civilization as we know it and after years of seclusion everything changes when someone moves into one the houses down the street.

While I thoroughly enjoyed getting to listen in on how Riley sees the world and copes with this new variable, I had a difficult time with the pace NEVER changing--not when quiet things are happening like looking out at a lake and contemplating life, not when more intense things are happening like the sundry depictions of violent body mutilation.

There's so much more I want to say about this book but giving away any more will take away from your own experience.

If you're looking to relive the shocking unknown of a worldwide pandemic and you don't mind an ending that leaves you hanging off the cliff edge, this is the novella is for you.

/Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book./

A short and strange novel about the end of the world as we know it, Your Shadow Half Remains is ready to provoke your thoughts.

The mechanism for the apocalypse is not fully explored and that adds to the mystery and surrealism of the story.

Riley has settled in an isolated cabin, far from any other people, and she likes it that way. Mostly. When Ellis moves in nearby, Riley starts to want things that are dangerous to both herself and Ellis, and struggles with her grip on reality.

This is a concise and well plotted story, but I wouldn't have minded some clarity on the horrors of the end-times and a little backstory. Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for the chance to review this advance copy. Your Shadow Half Remains publishes 2/6/24.

This was PHENOMENAL. I'm still in shock honestly, I keep reading the last couple of lines over and over and OVER again.

I'm a big fan of these more weird and obscure apocalypse-type stories. Zombie stories are great but they all get very samey, ya know? This is definitely in a similar vein to Bird Box but I adored that too so that's not a bad thing.

I can't even begin to describe how incredibly Moraine builds tension, builds fear. I read a lot of horror and I don't think a single book has ever made me scared before, but this? My heart was pounding, shivers up my spine. GOD, I'm going to scream it from the rooftops, this was so, so good.

Normally I'm not a big fan of romance in these kinds of scenarios, but I feel like it was such an important part to the plot and works so, so well with the trope of not being able to look at each other. You really feel how hard it is for Riley and Ellis to want to be so close, and yet knowing if they go too far they'll not only kill themselves, but likely each other. That constant battle of will-they-won't-they was so anxiety inducing in the best of ways.

The climax to the story is what really made this for me, the unreliable narrator, the final conclusion to Ellis and Riley's relationship. Just perfect.

I'm so massively in love and amazed by this and I don't think it'll ever leave my head.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

I liked this piece. I was really interested in Riley and Ellis but I wanted more from their relationship. I wanted more from their story that I didn’t really get. I wanted more emotions telegraphed through Ellis’ actions. If there was more of that, I think it would have been a solid 4 stars.

The author does a great job at creating doubt with the narrator, keeping us wondering if she is crazy or not. This was tense and parts were definitely creepy. I feel like a novella was a good length for this in lieu of a full novel. The writing was easily digestible. This does remind me a lot of Bird Box but only to the extent of “don’t look at it..” In this case, people turn violent if they look someone in the eyes. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a short, creepy and unique read.

This was intense. And weird. It felt a bit repetitive, and the ending was expected, but nevertheless, I'm happy I received this ARC through Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

So, this book is a sort of COVID-era book, but with a virus (presumably) that's released if you look at somebody. And all our heroine wants to do is look at the face of her neighbor. Moraine's writing is fast-paced and nail-biting. Even if the cleft sentences and the very clipped prose can tire the reader, it still gives a certain vibe to their work, a clingy effect to it, enough to make you return.

The middle of the book dragged a bit. This one could be even shorter if you're asking me. The action crescendos into the reversal of what's real and not real--I appreciated this--but I won't deny that I did see the ending coming.

The MC's voice has to be my favorite thing from this novel. I loved how her mind worked through impressions and weird trains of thought. The symbolism could have been woven a bit better--I feel the issue with the birds was a bit underdeveloped. Perhaps because there wasn't enough narration into why the reader would care about the MC's obsession with the eyes of birds (apart from... well... if you've read the book, you know the kind of spoilers I'm referring to here.)

Overall, this was a pleasant experience! It kept me awake at night. High-strung and jittery. Would recommend it to horror fans.

I love an unreliable narrator and boy did I not trust Riley for a good 3/4 of this novella. Phenomenal writing, really! I am sure this was inspired by many things but it did remind me of the feeling many of us experienced at the start of COVID - uncertainty, loneliness, distrust. All in all, a wonderful piece of work.

9/10 4.5/5 Stars

This was a knock-out read for me. I am a huge fan of the Last of Us games, the show is okay too, and this book gave me the same energy that story does but was different enough that I never felt it was pulling too much from that material that was no doubt an inspiration. Sunny Moraine has a knack for lovely prose and I will read anything they publish. This quick read is a queer dystopian novella that feels like it was written with the worlds bottled up anxiety during the COVID 19 pandemic and churned into ink for Sunny to pen this tale with. If you like gruesome scenes of violence and gore and body horror, this is going to be your jam!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the eARC in exchange for a review!

Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine was an absolute trip, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Pitched as The Last of Us meets Bird Box, this book is full of twists and turns and straight up scares. Horror is one of my favorite genres, and rarely do I actually feel the same sense of dread so thoroughly as the characters, but this one got me.

Riley has isolated herself completely in a post-apocalyptic world that punishes even casual acquaintances, with eye contact now a trigger that sets people into violent, murderous rages. The first contact she has had in a very long time is Ellis, another young woman who has recently moved into Riley’s mostly abandoned neighborhood.

Riley doesn’t trust Ellis, but she also doesn’t trust herself most of the time - the result of both being paranoia sinking deeper under Riley’s skin. Getting to know Ellis comes with it’s own consequences, but maybe it’s not all bad?

It feels impossible to talk about my favorite parts of this book without giving it all away, but it feels equally impossible to spoil anything. I was constantly being surprised by this novel, thinking I knew where it was going and being delightfully shocked when I was wrong. It’s a quicker read, under 200 pages, and I think the length only adds to the quick pacing and growing sense of dread that comes with getting further and further into the story.

I am very very excited to do a deep dive into everything else Sunny Moraine has ever written, and let it consume me completely.

I am so throughly creeped out, unsettled, and disturbed. This was compared to The Last Of Us and Bird Box, and it absolutely delivered.

Riley’s world is horrifying. People are losing their minds and brutally killing others, and themselves. What is causing this? By looking into each other’s eyes. CHILLS. This absolutely freaked me out to the point that I had to turn off the audiobook (which was brilliantly narrated by the author), because I couldn’t handle the graphic images.

Friends, this is not for the faint of heart. This is an absolutely demented story and the ending left me wanting so much more. So sad that’s how it ended, but I see the artistic value in it, and I give a lot of props to this author. To pack that much of a punch in such a short book AND narrate it like a pro? Bravo 👏🏻

Thank you Macmillan audio, NetGalley, and Tor Nightfire for this ALC and ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. This publishes on 2/6/24!

This was a discomforting book to read, and that's a compliment! Even with this book being less than 200 pages, it is a quick read for how much it made me want to keep turning the page. Unreliable narrators are sometimes hard to capture; sometimes they give away too much, or I know I can't trust them and then try to find plot holes. Riley is different; I really believed her and WANTED to believe her. That's what made this book so enjoyable even as it devolved into madness.

I would have loved more interaction with the crows, as I think they are fascinating creatures and have cool literary tropes to play with. Overall, I think this is a good book to start with if you want to read something weird and morbid.

After an apocalyptic event where making eye contact causes people to enter a deadly rage, Riley is alone. She has gone quite a while without seeing another human face, and while her isolated existence keeps her safe, it is also causing her to lose track of time and crave connection with a world that no longer exists.

But Riley is alone, and she is safe, and she is content in her new and isolated existence, for the most part. At least until Ellis moves in down the road. Even though the apocalypse has taught Riley that being alone is the only way to guarantee survival, Ellis makes her feel safe. As the two grow closer, Riley finds it harder and harder to fight her deepest desires - to LOOK.

Your Shadow Half Remains is a quieter novella, a more internal conflict than the apocalypse setting might have you believe. The comp titles of The Last of Us and Bird Box do this story an injustice in a way; while the type of apocalypse is similar to those mentioned, this is not an action heavy story. There are no zombie chase scenes, no perilous journey through a wasteland, Riley is just trying to survive in a world that is trying to chug along despite it all. As the pages turn and Riley becomes unraveled, the sense of slow dread the reader feels ramps up alongside her. Trigger warnings for gore here; both real and imagined as Riley contemplates the world around her and what happens when eye contact can turn you into a monster intent on killing others around you.

A well-paced and creeping horror novella, I will absolutely be picking up more from Moraine in the future!

In this apocalyptic horror, we follow Riley, a woman living alone years after a virus that turns you into a rage monster if you see anyone else’s eyes ravaged the world. Things get a lot more complicated when a new neighbor shows up to her forest home and she has to figure out if she can trust him after being alone for so long. For a short novel, it packs a ton into it’s narrative. I thought the most interesting question it investigates is how a virus that no one really knows the rules for can mutate and change and you wouldn’t really know if you were cut off from other people. Especially a virus where the end result is madness and violence, but the isolation that the virus sends you into also can drive you crazy. This was really, really good and is kind of a perfect post-COVID narrative about how scary it is to be totally alone. Disorienting and scary, this is a great unreliable narrator read.

This review will be posted on my Instagram- @boozehoundbookclub closer to the pub date.

I devoured this book. Set in a relatively mundane pandemic world where everyone’s best bet for survival is complete isolation.

This is probably one of my favorite books that’s about COVID without being ABOUT COVID.