life in the eyes of a teenage bookworm: SILVER SHADOWS BY RICHELLE MEAD

BOOK TITLE: Silver Shadows
AUTHOR: Richelle Mead
PUBLISHER: Razorbill
RELEASE DATE: July 29th 2014
NUMBER OF PAGES: 380
MAIN GENRES: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance

This review includes spoilers, proceed at your own risk .

Beginning: CHAPTERS 1 - 11

This section basically covers all of the 'before communication' chapters.

At the end of Fiery Heart, Sydney was taken by the Alchemists after her sister, Zoe, betrayed her by telling them that Sydney was involved with Adrian. Silver Shadows begins a few months later.
At the beginning of the novel, Sydney is in a part of the Alchemists' re-education called Reflection, where she is basically locked in a dark room by herself, filled with only the barest of necessities. Oh, and the persistent voice of the Alchemists, pumped through speakers into her cell.
Her only options being to either stay there or admit her 'sins' and move on to the next part of re-education, it isn't long until Sydney is admitting that she 'fell in love with a vampire'.

I love you! ♥

This admission gets her upgraded Level 2, where we get a whole bunch of new characters; such as Grace Sheridan, the 'current director' of the re-education facility, as well as Sydney's 'fellow prisoners', the most notable of which being Emma and Ducan.
Whilst it's hard to imagine anything worse than Reflection at this point, Sydney soon learns that the Alchemists can do much, much worse when she ends up in Purging (and later even Purging.2) after being especially vocal about her beliefs.
It's okay though, because Sydney just knows that Adrian is out there being a hero and doing everything he can to find her.

Oh Adrian, save me!

But of course, no. You see, Adrian starts off Silver Shadows concerned for Sydney and and wants to find her. However, once get gets to court and discovers how popular he is there now that he's doing secret work for her royal highness Lissa Dragomir, Adrian becomes quite busy partying with fellow sprit-user Nina.

Sydney who?

Adrian actually irritated me quite a bit in section. I realise that most of his annoying behaviour stemmed from spirit, and that it was probably Mrs. Mead's intention to make the reader somewhat aggravated by his actions (such as by using Nina as a replacement..).
But DAMN, he annoyed me.

Middle: CHAPTERS 12 - 17

This sections refers to the rest of Sydney's time in re-education.

For me, this section was by far the most interesting. I loved seeing how Sydney began to get closer to the others in re-education, and I found all her snooping really gripping.
Plus, Adrian finally got his shit together. Which, trust me, was the biggest relief. If I'd had to read another scene where Adrian was being old-Adrian or a scene with Nina being all.. Nina I probably would have had to put the book down and go take an anger management class. Or two.

Touch him. I dare you.

Adrian finally goes back to Palm Springs (have I mentioned how much I missed the gang in this book?) and then himself and Marcus go out in search of Sydney.. Finally!
In order to find Sydney however, they need certain information. This leads the duo to her older sister, Carly, with whom Marcus becomes totally infatuated.
Side note: I totally love the idea of those two together! Do you? Let me know in the comments!

In the meantime, Sydney manages to get herself in deep, deep trouble. She's caught doing something she shouldn't and is introduced to yet another form of torture, this one called Persuasion.

Did someone say puuuuurrrrrsuasion?

End: CHAPTERS 18 - 22

I mean, I think this section is pretty straightforward.. But just incase, it refers to everything that happens once Sydney is finally out of re-education.

The escape from re-education itself was one of my favourite parts of Silver Shadows, for many reasons. Not only was it really interesting in terms of how they planned it out, and as always with Richelle Mead, it was superbly written, but it was actually really emotional to see Sydrian reunite.