The Shadow Club Rising

As an English professor and an avid reader, it's been a source of distress that one of my grandchildren doesn't like to read. He is fast-paced and doesn't like to slow down long enough to read; like so many of my students, he'll "wait for the movie." Recently he told me that his class at school had been reading THE SHADOW CLUB and that he had been reading ahead because he loved it. I bought it for him on the spot and purchased THE SHADOW CLUB RISING, the sequel, and two other books by Shusterman as well. He was excited to have them and has told me at length what he likes about the books: the constant action and drama, the characters sympathetic to his age group (11), etc. I thank Neal Shusterman for turning my grandson on to reading at long last!

The book was a ok book.The boy was in a club that was not for fun or anything like all the other club here. The boy want to get out but he couldn't.So they start to hurt him and they want to kill him know.

I thought this book was great. It was much better than the original Shadow Club and is filled with suspense. Sometimes it may seem violent but it was pretty good. I would reccomend this to anyone who liked read the original Shadow Club or just likes stories filled with suspense.

This is a sequel to The Shadow Club. In the first book, a group of students who seem to always be second best and never first, get together to form a revenge club. They pull a Hitchcockian maneuver where they each play pranks on one of the others' foes. But then things get out of hand.In this sequel, the school hosts a new student. He is impossibly good at anything he tries. He has bested all of the best. Now the best are second best. Then the pranks starts and everyone thinks it is the work of The Shadow Club.Jared, the ex-leader of the ex-club comes under the heaviest suspicion. He must work to try and clear his name but learns that no matter what you do, people will think what they want.Is it an impossible task? Maybe. But you will have to read how Jared deals with it and how everything plays out. It is a page turner right to the end.I remember a similar story on Disney's Recess, but here Shusterman takes the hard and serious line instead of the happy-go-lucky tone of the cartoon. Shusterman is so straight in this book that there in not even a single mention of Ralphy Sherman.An excellent book that just might be better than the original.

Having not read The Shadow Club (1988), I found this sequel able to stand on its own. In October, Jared and the six other members of the Shadow Club were suspended when the school discovered the devious doings of the Shadow Club--kids who were always second best in the student body. It's February now, and Jared has changed his ways. The problem is no one believes him. When Alec Smartz ("It was one of those cruel parental jokes a that would be an eternal mystery. But then on the other hand, it was so obvious that only a moron who try to take advantage of it. Whenever someone called him "Smart Alec," he would say .... 'Gee that's clever...'") comes to school and is perfect at everything, the student body takes note. Practical jokes start to plague Alec, and all fingers point to Jared. Jared tries to re-convene the Shadow Club in an effort to find the source of these attacks but the six other members want to stay as far away from their previous deeds. Jared is on his own. As the practical jokes get worse and worse, Jared discovers that sometimes telling the truth isn't enough. The Shadow Club has taken on a life of its own.I don't want to give away the important aspects of the story, so I will jump past the exciting and surprise ending and say that I found "Shadow Club Rising" a great and believable story. Many authors would have gone over the top and made this a tall tale, but Shusterman respects his characters. I love books that feature mean kids at this age level. It is so much a part of the daily life of a junior high student. The relationship Jared has with his guidance counselor is credible. It's good to see adults who aren't caricatures.