From the moment I saw the word synesthesia in the blurb of this book, I knew that I had to pick this book up. I have been mildly fascinating with the condition since learning about in primary school but I have never had the chance to read anything from the perspective of a synesthete before. However, this may or may not have largely been the reason I enjoyed this book as much as I did. While the overall story was entertaining and engrossing, I did have a lot of minor problems with how the romance and plotline aspects of this story were handled.

For starters, this is one of those plotlines that had me questioning why a teenager with no police or detective training/affiliations would be investigating a crime instead of the professionals. It infuriates me when characters like Nikki put themselves in needlessly dangerous situations. The entire situation with the escort service and finding the abandoned car made me nauseated. For one, what kind of “high-class” service would employ whatever underaged girl just rang them and asked for work? Would there not be some sort of ‘interview’ or initiation process? And there is no way the receptionist would have been so loosed-lipped. For all they knew, Nikki could have been a cop! Also, why did Nikki feel the need to contaminate evidence? There is no way that can end well. Either she will now be implicated in the crime or she will have ruined the police’s chance at having physical evidence against the true culprits. It’s a lose-lose scenario - and clearly frustrated me!

The mystery itself wasn’t too bad. I was definitely invested and interested in Peyton’s situation and desperately wanted to know what had happened to her. I felt that some of the twists were done well and I was pleasantly shocked by at least one of them. The pacing, however, was appalling. It was sooo slow! To the point where I couldn’t make myself read large chunks of the book at a time because I would get bored. I felt that the overall story could have been cut down - by a lot - if there wasn’t so many lengthy yet useless descriptive paragraph or inner monologues.

This was largely due to the writing style, I think. Someone else’s review (sorry, I don’t remember who) said that Brown had a peculiar way of spending paragraphs detailing how every piece of information/clue related back to Peyton’s assault (which we obviously already knew because we were with Nikki as she discovered it) and I have to agree with this. Nikki would spend a lot of time recapping or thinking about how everything connected. However, all this really did for the reader was halt the pace and made the story drag out.

On top of that, Nikki was ridiculously impulsive and reckless. I found it really hard to root for her when she would constantly make bad decisions and put herself in situations that she had no need to be involved. Arguably, she was able to defend herself because of her martial arts training but that doesn’t trump the fact that she is a minor with no official training. She should not be messing around with people capable of beating someone to within an inch of their life!

With that being said, I thought the action sequences were written incredibly well. They were realistic and detailed enough that I could easily visualise the scene playing out even though I have no personal experience with martial arts/hand-to-hand combat. I also liked the no one was immune to injury, even the ‘good guys’, and that Nikki personally kicked ass as much as she got her ass kicked.

The story’s romance was too unnecessary for my tastes. I absolutely loved that Nikki was completely comfortable with how she choose to conduct her sex life but I, personally, thought that we needed more time and development in her relationships as readers. I have no judgement for people who wish to conduct purely physical relationships but I did find it hard to get emotionally invested in Nikki and Dru’s relationship when even they weren’t all that emotional about it. Does that make sense? It didn’t help that I was not a fan of Dru in the first place. Nikki kept saying that he was more than his reputation but I never felt that we truly got to see that ‘soft’ side of him that she seemed to.

To add another grievance to the list, this book suffered - majorly so - from Missing Parent Syndrome. It know that’s something a lot of other YA books suffer from and in cases like Shade Me, I can kind of see why Brown felt the need to do that. It does give Nikki the chance to get away with the reckless and impulsive behaviour we see in this story and if her father had been around, she wouldn’t have been able to investigate the mystery… which means we wouldn’t have had a plot. It was still annoying, however, and I wished we had the chance to explore their relationship instead.

Overall?

As much as I have complained so far, I actually enjoyed this book overall. I thought Nikki’s synesthesia was incredibly well-done and it added an amazing element to the story, one which really set the book apart from the other books in its genre. There were a lot of things that did annoy me about this story, like the romance and Nikki’s recklessness, but, in the end, this was a mostly entertaining read. I will definitely be picking up the sequel next year!

Review copy provided by the publisher for an honest review.