I Become Shadow

April 7, 2014
This action-packed SF thriller, Shine’s first novel, follows Ren Sharpe from her kidnapping by the clairvoyant F.A.T.E. agency at age 14. Though Ren’s story starts awkwardly, describing her first Pap smear and a gross betrayal by her crush, it gains in intensity and interest after the abduction, as Ren struggles with her brutal new surroundings. Put through a sadistic training program to become a Shadow, a fearless bodyguard for her FIP (Future Important Person), Ren toughens up quickly. “The girl you were can’t survive here.... You need to become someone else,” a fellow Shadow advises her, and Ren comes to believe in F.A.T.E.’s mission to protect humanity’s future leaders and innovators. At 18, Ren is chemically “linked” to science prodigy Gareth, and the usual love triangle formula receives a twist as Ren compares her artificially induced feelings for brainy Gareth with her spontaneous love for brawny, loyal Junie, whose friendship made her training bearable. Shine has a talent for high-stakes fight scenes, and excitement builds as Ren, Junie, and Gareth unravel the mysteries of F.A.T.E. Many questions go unanswered, leaving room for a sequel. Ages 14–up.

May 15, 2014
A secret international organization gets more than it bargained for when it kidnaps 14-year-old Rennes "Ren" Sharpe.Snatched from her bed one night, Ren finds herself at the Future Affairs Training and Education Center. Ren soon learns that she and the other teens at the center are all recruits undergoing training to serve as protectors, or Shadows, to the future leaders. The first-person narrative follows her four-year training program at the F.A.T.E. Center, including torturous nightly injections of the drug "fire" to inure her to pain. On the first day of training, she meets Junie Miller, and the two develop a connection that eventually develops into a romance of sorts. Of course, once training ends, Ren and Junie are separated forever, as both are linked to their assignments, the future leaders they are sworn to protect. Ren's "link" is the nerdy Gareth Young, incoming freshman engineering major at Texas A&M. After Gareth is targeted in a seemingly random attack, Ren starts breaking the Shadow rules, beginning to wonder whether something more sinister is behind the attack. In his debut, Shine delivers a thrilling plot and a headstrong heroine on par with Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior. While the novel delivers on Ren's characterization and action, the romance between Ren and Junie feels unnecessary and is never quite believable.Read it for the satisfying action, not the love story. (Science fiction/thriller. 14-18)

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May 1, 2014

Gr 6-10-A lightearted take on government conspiracies and highly trained secret assassins. Fourteen-year-old Rennes Sharpe has a lovely life in Amherst, Massachusetts, until she is pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and taken to a secret facility. She learns that high-ranking officials can now see the future via satellite images, and that young people who would have died otherwise (like herself) are instead plucked from their lives and trained as covert bodyguards for people who will eventually become important to humanity. Her death is faked so her parents stop looking for her; she's given daily injections of something called "fire" designed to destroy her pain receptors; and in four years, she's released as a protective killing machine. But after meeting her FIP (Future Important Person), she finds out that both of them are just pawns in a larger conspiracy. The novel is brimming with wisecracks and jokes, which turn an interesting concept into a very light read. Despite the loose ends that never get tied up, or even addressed fully, and several overly implausible deus ex machinas, there is plenty of excitement and humor to carry the story.-Kyle Lukoff, Corlears School, New York City

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 Not-so-popular 14-year-old Ren Sharpe is kidnapped one night and whisked away to the training facility for FATE (Future Affairs Training and Education), part of a secret world organization. For the next four years, she and hundreds of other international recruits undergo searing daily nerve-killing injections called fire. Their survival and protection training is painful, dangerous, and relentless, but the results are human weapons that feel no pain, have no fear, and harbor an unwavering duty to protect the future world leader to which each is assigned. Ren is linked with Gareth, a Texas A&M freshman who will eventually be a world game changer. Never comfortable with the program that created her, Ren steps out of line when Gareth is attacked in a way that makes her think her organization has ultraclandestine plans they're not sharing. With a love triangle, vivid training sessions, and ample action, Shine's debut introduces a new kick-butt, funny heroine who could hold her own in a ring full of tough, independent girls like Katniss Everdeen, Tris Prior, and Lela Santos.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)