Christopher Swann | SHADOW OF THE LIONS
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of SHADOW OF THE LIONS by Christopher Swann thanks to Algonquin Books! The plot to this one really sucked me in and I couldn't wait to begin...and with such a busy week work-wise, I was lucky to finish it rather quickly! This was also an exciting one as one of my dear friends and fellow "bookstagrammer", Stacey was also reading this one and I was thrilled we could do a buddy read together. Check her out @prose_and_palate on Instagram!
See my review below. As always, comments are welcome!
Plot:
In the middle of his senior year at the Blackburne School in Virginia, Matthias Glass’s roommate and best friend Fritz Davenport runs off into the woods after the two boys have an argument--and vanishes without a trace. Ever since, Matthias has felt responsible, thinking that their fight, about a betrayal of the school’s honor code, led to Fritz’s disappearance.
A decade later, after an early triumph with his first novel, followed by too much partying and too little work, Matthias realizes he has stalled out and become a failure as a writer, a boyfriend, a man. So when he is offered a job at Blackburne as an English teacher, he sees it as a chance to put his life back together. But once on campus, Matthias gets swiftly drawn into the past and is driven to find out what happened to Fritz. Along the way he must reckon with Fritz’s complicated and powerful Washington, D.C., family and the shocking death of a student--and begin to understand his own place in the privileged world of Blackburne.
Review:
There are three things that really suck me in with a novel when reading it; atmosphere, fall weather, and secrets. SHADOWS OF THE LIONS had all three. Swann really roped me in with this one early on with a chilling and shocking opening. Two boys argue and one takes off running basically into the woods and is never seen again. Hello! I am all in. Swann then delves deep in an atmospheric prose that is hard to not become addicted to. If anything, this author can really write a novel. I found myself loving the prep school setting and could see the fog rolling off from the two giant lions that guard the schools gates.
While I was quickly intrigued with this one and immediately sucked into this story, upon Matthias' return to the school, I felt myself hit a reading rut. The story kind of slowed down for me for about 100 pages. As I was bouncing back between characters of the past and those of the present, I was torn between good and evil. While the characters I was meeting were serving a purpose and I should have expected there to be plenty between the boys attending school and the staff, I was rather confused with so many people being thrown at me at once. While plenty, each character was written in unique ways that really included stories and characteristics that did make them stand out, which I did enjoy. The middle of this one was rather slow for me, but I was eager to learn more as to what happened to Fritz the evening he disappeared. As I was really getting to learn to know how Matthias turned into the man he is present day, I was cannon-balled into this novel with no warning whatsoever.
Around 150 pages, events begin to take a turn as Matthias starts to stick his nose where it doesn't belong and ask questions that no one wants to answer. So much action and mystery started to overwhelm me, that I found myself devouring the pages and visiting some old and new characters that I was happy to see. Different events began to pour into the meat of this novel and things really started to pick up, each chapter ending on devious and ominous notes. I was drunk on literature.
The different events weaving together building mysteries of the present with the past was written in such a genius way that as a reader, I couldn't get enough. The chapters began to fly by, the theories poured out of the pages, and the amount of red herrings I was encountering were buzzing around my head as I quickly found myself blindly thrown into a multitude of secrets and revelations. Now, without spoiling too much I found the main revelation of this novel (told in many different "miniature" reveals) was not only shocking, but a little unrealistic for me. I wasn't so much as disappointed, but rather thinking to myself "I didn't see that coming!"
It's no secret that Swann is off to do great things and is an expert literary writer. With a shockingly chilling opener, my dismay with the middle of this novel was quickly diluted as I got into the more suspenseful scenes and found myself enjoying this one as it continued. I am happy to say I found the ending paragraph to not only be heartfelt, but even more chilling than the opening. Very well done, in my honest opinion. Christopher Swann, you can write one hell of a novel with beautiful imagery and an uncomfortably addicting core and for that, I can't wait to devour what you write next.
A very special thank you to Algonquin Books for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
Rating: 3.5/5
See my review below. As always, comments are welcome!
Plot:
In the middle of his senior year at the Blackburne School in Virginia, Matthias Glass’s roommate and best friend Fritz Davenport runs off into the woods after the two boys have an argument--and vanishes without a trace. Ever since, Matthias has felt responsible, thinking that their fight, about a betrayal of the school’s honor code, led to Fritz’s disappearance.
A decade later, after an early triumph with his first novel, followed by too much partying and too little work, Matthias realizes he has stalled out and become a failure as a writer, a boyfriend, a man. So when he is offered a job at Blackburne as an English teacher, he sees it as a chance to put his life back together. But once on campus, Matthias gets swiftly drawn into the past and is driven to find out what happened to Fritz. Along the way he must reckon with Fritz’s complicated and powerful Washington, D.C., family and the shocking death of a student--and begin to understand his own place in the privileged world of Blackburne.
Review:
There are three things that really suck me in with a novel when reading it; atmosphere, fall weather, and secrets. SHADOWS OF THE LIONS had all three. Swann really roped me in with this one early on with a chilling and shocking opening. Two boys argue and one takes off running basically into the woods and is never seen again. Hello! I am all in. Swann then delves deep in an atmospheric prose that is hard to not become addicted to. If anything, this author can really write a novel. I found myself loving the prep school setting and could see the fog rolling off from the two giant lions that guard the schools gates.
While I was quickly intrigued with this one and immediately sucked into this story, upon Matthias' return to the school, I felt myself hit a reading rut. The story kind of slowed down for me for about 100 pages. As I was bouncing back between characters of the past and those of the present, I was torn between good and evil. While the characters I was meeting were serving a purpose and I should have expected there to be plenty between the boys attending school and the staff, I was rather confused with so many people being thrown at me at once. While plenty, each character was written in unique ways that really included stories and characteristics that did make them stand out, which I did enjoy. The middle of this one was rather slow for me, but I was eager to learn more as to what happened to Fritz the evening he disappeared. As I was really getting to learn to know how Matthias turned into the man he is present day, I was cannon-balled into this novel with no warning whatsoever.
Around 150 pages, events begin to take a turn as Matthias starts to stick his nose where it doesn't belong and ask questions that no one wants to answer. So much action and mystery started to overwhelm me, that I found myself devouring the pages and visiting some old and new characters that I was happy to see. Different events began to pour into the meat of this novel and things really started to pick up, each chapter ending on devious and ominous notes. I was drunk on literature.
The different events weaving together building mysteries of the present with the past was written in such a genius way that as a reader, I couldn't get enough. The chapters began to fly by, the theories poured out of the pages, and the amount of red herrings I was encountering were buzzing around my head as I quickly found myself blindly thrown into a multitude of secrets and revelations. Now, without spoiling too much I found the main revelation of this novel (told in many different "miniature" reveals) was not only shocking, but a little unrealistic for me. I wasn't so much as disappointed, but rather thinking to myself "I didn't see that coming!"
It's no secret that Swann is off to do great things and is an expert literary writer. With a shockingly chilling opener, my dismay with the middle of this novel was quickly diluted as I got into the more suspenseful scenes and found myself enjoying this one as it continued. I am happy to say I found the ending paragraph to not only be heartfelt, but even more chilling than the opening. Very well done, in my honest opinion. Christopher Swann, you can write one hell of a novel with beautiful imagery and an uncomfortably addicting core and for that, I can't wait to devour what you write next.
A very special thank you to Algonquin Books for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
Rating: 3.5/5
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