Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another review! For this review, I got into The Shadows by Alex North. The Shadows is a unique thriller and suspenseful book that goes back and forth from the main character’s youth and his current adulthood, diving into his dark experience with lucid dreaming.
Main Characters:
- Paul Adams: The main character in the book. We follow Paul and his childhood friends in their youth as they jump into the world of lucid dreaming, and then we follow Paul in his adulthood and see the effects that his friends had on him.
- Charlie Crabtree: The ring leader of the friends, introduces the boys to lucid dreaming, and eventually introduces them to red hands
- Detective Amanda Beck: Is the main detective on the crime that’s very similar to the crime Charlie and his friends committed many years ago.
Some warnings for future readers:
- This book includes murder
My Review
I’ve got to be straight with you about The Shadows by Alex North – it didn’t exactly sweep me off my feet, but I wouldn’t say I hated it either. The first half had me pretty hooked, but somewhere in the second half, it lost that spooky charm for me. Can’t put my finger on it, but by then, I was just looking to wrap it up and move on. I guess I was expecting the theme of lucid dreaming to stay strong throughout, but it kind of faded in the second half. Hence, my 7.5/10 rating.
The ending is a bit of a letdown, to be honest. I was all in for that paranormal vibe they set up early on, but it didn’t really pan out. I get it; maybe I set my expectations too high due to the main character’s early delusions. Paul heads back to his hometown after ages, and it’s the first time since his youth. Back then, he and his buddies, including Charlie, were into group lucid dreaming, which took a dark turn, resulting in a tragic event. The horror stuck with Paul until he left town. Coming back, weird things start happening, and he’s convinced it’s the spirit or the resurrection of Charlie haunting him. I might’ve gotten too deep into his delusions, thinking the book was more paranormal than it turned out to be.
I did enjoy the way the book unfolded, though. Paul’s present-day investigation was interwoven with what he was running away from in the past. I liked Paul for a good chunk, but he started getting on my nerves. I felt like he was a bit of a coward, especially considering he is an adult for most of the book and no longer a kid. What really had me glued were the past parts – the most interesting, suspenseful, and sensible bits. The whole theme about secrets being deadly added a nice touch. However, the plot left me confused for a good chunk of the book. I wasn’t sure if Paul was supposed to be the bad guy; Charlie was clear, but Paul? Conflicted.
As the story unravelled, it became clear that not everyone was as virtuous as they seemed, but it felt a bit rushed toward the end. More backstory on why things ended up the way they did would’ve been great. Honestly, I wished we got perspectives from more characters than just Paul and the main detective – a peek into Charlie’s thoughts would’ve been cool.
Despite my gripes, the characters were strong and dynamic. Paul’s struggle with identity explains why he tried so hard to bury the past. It was fascinating to see how, despite his efforts, he couldn’t escape it. When a murder echoes the one from his friends’ youth, Paul’s worst nightmares seem to be coming true. Seeing Paul in his youth and adulthood gave insight into why he turned out the way he did and why he’s so afraid of being pulled back into Charlie’s world, even though Charlie’s long gone.
Summary and Commentary
***Please be aware this section will have spoilers***
The book starts off with a perspective from Detective Amanda Beck. Amanda is on the way to a crime scene. When she gets there we get a description of a teen boy dead, in the position of prayer in the middle of the woods. The scene is described to be bone-chilling in terms of its eeriness, it’s almost presented like the body was left there as some type of sacrifice. We then get a perspective from Paul. Paul has returned back to his hometown as his mother is currently in hospice. It’s clear that Paul hasn’t been home in a long time, and he didn’t come to visit his mother before the point of her being in hospice. It seems like he holds some guilt from not going to see her before, but it seems like he’s had his reasons for not returning. When his mom has a moment of lucidity when he visits she tells him he shouldn’t be here. I wondered if maybe something had happened between the two of them. His mother starts talking about red hands, which I found interesting considering in Amanda’s part earlier on she also references red hand prints at the scene. Paul’s interaction with his mom has left him rattled. What she said starts making him think about his childhood and his group of friends. Paul had a best friend named James growing up, and the two hung out with two other boys.
We then get the first perspective from the past. Growing up James and Paul were outsiders. They didn’t exactly fit in and often just hung out together. James and Paul often get bullied by the other kids at the school. One day when they are getting picked on some boys named Charlie and Billy come to defend the two. Charlie and Billy are also labelled as weird outsiders. Charlie ends up defending James and Paul and getting the bully to leave them alone. Despite James taking an instant liking to Charlie, Paul’s on the fence about him. It’s clear Charlie is a bit of an odd guy, but he seems to know this and embrace it. Charlie gets the bully to leave by mentioning to him that Charlie had dreamed about him. The whole interaction was interesting. Paul is into creative writing, and it seems to be a big passion of his. Paul meets Jenny in the creative writing class and starts to take a liking to her when they bond over their love for similar authors. Paul then talks about the new friendship he and James sparked up with Billy and Charlie. Paul doesn’t like Charlie and Billy much, but James does, and he likes James. When the boys are hanging out together one day Charlie tells them about his dream journal, in which he writes down what he dreamed every morning. Charlie starts to tell them about how he’s been using this method to be able to start lucid dreaming. The boys are initially a bit weirded out by it, and Paul continues to become suspicious of Charlie.
Back in the present Amanda is working on the case of the murdered teen. They had found the boy’s friends not too long after the body was discovered, and when they found the blood-stained teens it was clear who did it. Amanda is more curious about the why. The boys were writing about their dreams and it was clear the dreams were becoming a bit disturbing. Someone else is in the dreams and is referred to as RH, this person is she doesn’t know. The dreams also talk about someone named Charlie being present. When Amanda gets access to the boy’s computers it’s clear they have been a part of a chat room, and Amanda can figure out that they are referencing Billy and Charlie throughout the chat. Amanda looks into the history of Charlie and Billy’s case (it starts to become clear that they must have done something similar to the boys) and sees too many coincidences between the two. There is another person in the chat room, and based on the info they know they must have been close with Charlie and Billy, or it was Charlie and Billy in the chatroom. The odd part about it though was that Charlie had been missing for many years.
Paul continues to deal with the weird feelings he has of being back in his hometown. He doesn’t seem to have great memories here and is often reminded of the bad things. He continues to reflect back on his youth and how he eventually let Charlie break him down to join his lucid dreaming group. When out at a pub one night Paul runs into Jenny. Now they are both much older they reminisce on old times. It’s clear through their conversation that Paul never really lived up to what he had expected of himself. He expected to be a well-published writer at this point but had dropped his passions early on in his adulthood. It seems that running into Jenny has reminded him of all the things he didn’t do with his life when he left, and this bothers him. When Paul gets back home he starts searching for something. He seems to be searching for something from the past.
Back in the past, it’s clear this lucid dreaming thing Charlie has convinced the boys to do is stressing them out. Charlie seems convinced that eventually, the boys will be able to influence their dreams so that they are all in the same dream together. He gets the boys to think of a specific place, and specific people, in the hopes they will find each other in their dreams, or dream the same thing. The boys write down their dreams and then get together to find out if they are all dreaming the same thing. Other than Paul all the boys are very into it, and very badly want to connect to one another’s dreams. Paul is skeptical that they can actually do it, but he also is curious as to why Charlie would even want them to do it. It’s very clear that Paul finds Charlie to be full of bullshit, but Charlie enjoys the challenge of Paul’s views. Charlie is definitely a bit creepy, and very controlling. We also find out who RH is and it seems to be someone named Red Hands, but Paul questions who this Red Hands is and why the boys are seeing him.
In the present Amanda continues to work on the investigation. While trying to find out more about the murdered boy’s connection to Charlie and this Red Hands it’s clear that the boy’s parents are very upset with what Amanda presents to them, they just can’t understand why this would happen. Amanda doesn’t get much from them and is stuck at square one. Back with Paul, he continues to look through his family’s home. He seems to think there is something in there that he needs to find. In the attic, he finds that his mother has a box full of things regarding Paul, his connection to Charlie and Billy, and the crimes that those two committed so long ago. As he looks through the box he finds that his mother had kept many news articles that reference crimes that were similar to the one that Charlie and Billy committed. Paul knew that after Charlie and Billy killed one of their classmates Billy was arrested, but Charlie had disappeared, never to be found. He starts to wonder if his mother kept this because she suspected that Charlie may not have really just disappeared. Further, Paul questions why his mother would have kept this all. It’s also clear that even though Charlie and Billy did what they did many years ago, it still negatively affects Paul to this day. Being the boy’s friend he feels like he played a role in everything, and feels a lot of guilt. What role he played exactly wasn’t all that clear yet.
It’s clear that like Paul Amanda also believes that Charlie Crabtree could be alive, and back to his old tricks. Amanda tries to contact Billy, who is presented as being out on parole. It’s clear that just like Paul though, Billy isn’t too interested in bringing up the past. One night Paul is asleep in his family home. He wakes to some weird noises and when he checks it out there are long scratches on his door, and also blood. We then get a perspective from the past, and it’s clear those scratches on Paul’s door are not the first time he’s seen them. When Paul and James were doing their lucid dreaming thing, Paul stayed over at James’ home one night. When the two woke up the next morning James’ mother was freaking out because there were scratches and blood on the door. It seems odd that this would happen to James in their youth, and Paul in his adulthood. I started to think that maybe Charlie never died and had come back to haunt Paul in a way.
In the present Amanda goes to talk to Billy in person. When she arrives at his home she finds and bloody horror scene. Billy has been beaten to an unrecognizable pulp, and the whole scene is just ugly. It seems like he’s been tortured also based on the severity of the crime. Of course, Amanda is greatly disturbed by this, and wonders if it has anything to do with the recent murders, or maybe the past one. Now she can maybe find out though if Billy was in the chat room.
In the past, it’s clear that Paul is getting more uncomfortable with how obsessed the other boys are getting with this lucid dreaming thing. It’s also clear that the more he defies the ability for them to dream together, Charlie gets more. It’s clear that Charlie doesn’t like to give up power and control, and he doesn’t want to be embarrassed, and Paul does that. Despite Paul’s dislike for Charlie, he stays because James seems to like him so much, and he doesn’t want to lose out on his only friendship. Charlie then presents to the boys his plan. He wants them to use Red Hands, who shows up in their dreams, to kill people they don’t like. Paul isn’t down with it at all but also doesn’t believe that they have so much power in their dreams. Charlie presents though that for Red Hands to do their dirty work, all four boys have to be in the dream to give him his power. Paul again is skeptical and doesn’t want to be a part of it, this pisses Charlie off, but he can convince Paul that they need him.
In the present, Paul continues to question if Charlie is back. He further questions this because this doll, which apparently Charlie made for him, is shoved through the mail slot of his family’s home. This is extremely odd because only a few people knew about the doll, and how it ended up here now after all of this time has no reasonable explanation. The doll had something to do with the dreaming and their ability to connect with one another. When Paul visits his mother at the hospice he and Amanda meet for the first time. Knowing about Charlie’s story Amanda seeks out Paul to see if he can maybe fill in some blanks, or if maybe it was Paul in the chatroom. I felt like Paul probably wasn’t a part of the chatroom but maybe it was him. Amanda can tell that Paul dances around her questions and only gives her as much information as he wants to. She can tell though that he truly did just want to move on from the past and didn’t have anything to do with Billy or the chatroom. He does tell her about the other similar cases that his mother had collected in the hopes that this may help her in the investigation. When Amanda asks him if Charlie could be alive Paul is adamant he’s not, but we as the reader know that he’s been thinking that.
Billy’s death is throwing Paul off a lot. He starts to worry if maybe Charlie has come back for revenge, but then again that seemed like a lot. Why would Charlie care to come back after all of this time? Back in the past, Paul thinks about how the boys were able to successfully hurt one of the people they had their sights set on. Paul clearly doesn’t fully believe that they played a role, but on the flip side, it’s hard to deny the coincidence. This freaks Paul out enough that he decides they can’t be dreaming together anymore and he needs to split off from the group. It’s also clear that James is lying about his dreams to fit in, and Paul doesn’t want to part in it anymore. After splitting off from the group Paul starts to create a stronger relationship with Jenny.
In the present Paul is still freaked. With Billy dead, the scratches, and the doll, he isn’t sure what to do. Paul goes to talk with Jenny to see what she thinks. He wants to run away again, but she convinces him it’s time to face his demons. I wondered if maybe some romance would spark between the two again, and why it ended in the first place. I guess with Paul running away that doesn’t help create a strong relationship. Amanda continues to try to figure out who was in the chatroom and who killed Billy. She gets a call with a clue about who is using the chatroom, and she seems to recognize who it would be. In the past, we get a deeper look into the relationship that Jenny and Paul created in their youth. Jenny played a large role in Paul getting more interested in his passions. Jenny seemed to spark a lot of good things in him, and their relationship seemed healthy. Jenny shows Paul her favourite bookstore, and eventually, he gets a job there. In the present, Paul is walking into the old store he worked at. It’s clear even all these years later the owner of the store still cares deeply for Paul. When Paul is talking with his old boss, he gets a call that his mother has died. I wondered with her death Paul would run off again but it doesn’t seem like he will, maybe he’s ready to finally deal with his issues.
Back with Amanda, she follows the tracking of the chatroom user IP. It brings her to James’ old family home. It seemed like no one was living there but it did make me wonder where James was and what his role was in all of this. Based on the info given so far it seemed like he wasn’t involved in the murder Charlie and Billy committed. If he wasn’t involved though where was he it seemed like he was their friend still so… definitely weird. We get another look at the past with Jenny and Paul. It seems like the more time they spend together the two build a stronger relationship. They talk about Jenny coming over the next day when his parents are gone, insinuating they are going to do the deed. It does come to light though that Paul is a bit jealous of Jenny. The two put in for a short story contest, Jenny won, but Paul did not. Paul is thrown off though because when he reads Jenny’s story it’s called Red Hands. This throws him off because he knows who Red Hands is, but how does she? The story is about a boy finding his father dying in the woods after he slit his wrists. Paul finds out that Jenny based it on a true story. There was a story of a man who had impregnated two women. He chose his wife over the mistress, but his wife rejected him. In response, he killed himself in the woods leaving his two children behind. Turns out this didn’t happen all that long ago, about as long ago as Paul is. I started to wonder if maybe the real Red Hands had a connection to the boys somehow, considering he died around the time they were born. Paul decides to tell James what he’s learned about Red Hands and that Charlie may have made the whole thing up with a tale that was told around town. As Paul waits for Jenny to arrive at his home, he’s met instead with the police. They’ve come to tell him that Jenny has been found dead…the Jenny he was talking to in the present?? So he was talking to a ghost. I’ll be honest I was super confused.
In the next chapter, we are back in the present, and Paul is with Jenny again. It becomes clear that all those times Paul was talking to her, he was dreaming. Clearly, his vision of Jenny was supposed to lead him to deal with his past but also gave him the ability to hide from the fact that Billy and Charlie killed her. Jenny tells Paul that she’s sorry he was an original suspect. It turns out that originally the police thought he had killed Jenny. Being her boyfriend and all is what made the most initial sense. Jenny tells him that it wasn’t his fault, he wouldn’t have been able to protect her. I wondered if they killed Jenny just because, or if it had to do with her red hand story. When he’s awake something drives Paul to dig further in the box his mother had in the past. In it, he finds Charlie’s dream journal. This is weird for many different reasons, the biggest confusion being how his mother got this, and why she had kept it all these years later. While reading the journal Paul starts to realize that Charlie had been fooling the boys the whole time. Charlie had a plan to get them to all dream the same thing, but the question still is why. Paul sees a figure outside his house, and as it goes to leave he thinks he needs to follow it.
It turns out that James met a similar fate to Billy. He was found tortured and killed in his old family home. It does seem like though that James was the one in the chatroom, but why? To me, it seemed like he still believed in everything Charlie had told him. Turns out James’ stepfather Carl is still alive, and it seems like he may have something to do with it all, but that seemed weird to me. The figure that Paul follows turns out to be James’ stepdad, Carl. Again… I am confused. What the hell does he have to do with it all? Turns out Carl had done all that stuff at Paul’s home to scare him away. He had been the one to give his mom Charlie’s cream journal, and he didn’t want Paul to find it. Okay but how and why did he have the journal? Well turns out he had it because after Charlie had killed Jenny, he apparently went to James’ home to kill him. He just hadn’t expected James to beat him. James can kill Charlie before he kills him. His parents help him clean up the mess, and they keep the dream journal to hide the evidence. I just don’t get this, I mean if it was self-defence why hide it? I guess they just didn’t want James to suffer. It turns out that Red Hands was the father to both James and Charlie. James’ mother is the wife, and Charlie’s mother is the mistress. When Paul told James about the story James realized that the story of Red Hands and the story of his father were very similar, he just didn’t realize that Charlie had figured this out a long time ago.
Okay, so James and his parents killed and hid Charlie, so who killed Billy and James? I started to think it was maybe Paul, considering they killed his girlfriend, but that didn’t seem right. I also couldn’t see it being Carl. It turns out that it was the father of the murdered teen who killed all the men. After learning about the case that was similar to his sons, he became convinced that these men whether consciously or unconsciously played a role in his son’s death. Turns out he also wants revenge on Paul. The dad breaks into Paul’s home, but Paul can escape him. The book kind of ends at that. That’s why I didn’t enjoy the ending, I felt like I was left with more questions than I came in with. Maybe Alex was shooting for that. I just felt like the ending didn’t leave me with anything satisfying. I mean we know that Charlie is really dead, but I don’t get why Charlie chose this way to try to connect to his brother and dead father. I mean it’s clear he was mentally ill, but I just don’t get why he didn’t just talk to James about their connection. Maybe he felt as though to connect with his father he needed James. I am also still confused as to why they chose to kill Paul’s girlfriend of all people. Don’t get me wrong, the ending made sense, it was just kind of disappointing. A part of me did really want it to be like Charlie back after all of these years, or his spirit or something. I think as well I didn’t like the ending because it kind of let Paul off scott, and being able to run away from this stuff again. He never really had to deal with the guilt he had over Jenny and his mother, and was able to just kind of move on. A part of me was really questioning his mental health this whole book too.
I hope you enjoyed this review! Feel free to follow me on my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I drop a new review!
Baddie Book Reviews 