I'm leaving this one unfinished, about halfway through. A boring repetitive story told from the perspective of an 11 year old that the author tried to make sound smart and precocious, but it fell extremely flat. The story meanders between the girl's imaginative stories (which are not interesting or add meaning to the story), current events (also not interesting), and her own more recent memories (which surprisingly are more interesting). Peaking ahead it seems the book may become more interesting, I just can't get there.

I really enjoyed this book. I found the narrator so interesting. I know some reviewers on goodreads have complained about her fictitious stories that were wound throughout the real story. It makes sense considering she was only 12. I found her imagination endearing and her obsession with being a reader and loving words fascinating. I really was touched by the relationship she had with different adults and how it affected her view of her life.

#unreadshelfproject2020. This was a tough one to finish. Did not really enjoy this at all. I liked the premise of the story, the way it was written drove me nuts. It was narrated by a precocious eleven-year-old. I like her as a character, not the method she used to tell the story.

Quirky and irrepressible Clara at eleven years old, has many unanswered questions. Her mother blatantly refuses to answer most of Clara's questions. Clara tries many methods to squeeze her questions in and once in a great while she gets a small bit of information.

Clara winter is a strange girl they say. She makes up stories and book reports about people and places way beyond what should be her realm of knowledge, for Clara is a word person. She spells her last name with a lower case w because winter has been harsh to her and she dwells on that quite a bit. She was born in a blizzard and this fact works at her. It's one of the areas she repeatedly questions, her mother, Tamar.

When Clara is assigned to interview an older person, she already knows who she will pick. She's seen an old man that lights lanterns in the night and she knows right away that he's the person she wants to write about. She goes over on Wednesday nights, while her mother is at choir practice and tries to question the old man. Like Clara's mother, the old man often does not respond to her questions but over time the two find a meeting of mind and spirit. There's more to this story than I'll tell you here. This was a very good book though at times, as children will, Clara became a bit annoying. Well worth persevering through to the end.

This is an incredibly sweet, incredibly sad story. It is beautifully crafted. I fell in love with the characters who were almost painfully real. I will only share this book with those who have not recently experienced great loss, as it will be too raw. But those who can embrace the tenderness and strength they will witness in these characters who have each lost much, but can move forward in strength, will appreciate and love this story.

I wasn’t sure I liked it. Some parts dragged a little. But then I hit the last couple of characters and just started crying. So I guess it was good after all. I appreciate a book that sneaks up on you ❤️

I didn't like this book. I finished out of respect to my book club and being able to have a conversation. I was happy to get closure out of the book and would have loved to have an alternate perspectives of Tamar and the old man in this book.

I honestly didn't see a purpose to this book as it felt like "a year in a life" of a child that struggled to separate truth and fiction.

Clara winter (as she believes a capital W is not suitable) is a precocious 11 year old growing-up in Sterns - a small Adirondack town, She is the only child of Tamar, although she had a twin who died at birth. Her mother won't speak of: the twin, her father or her grandfather, and Clara is left with huge holes about her past. She befriends an old man, Georg Komisnky, who lives in a trailer by the church and learns to see things in a new way. One day, Georg's trailer is on fire and Clara rushes in, thinking he is there. Georg dies saving her and afterwards, Clara finally gets the answers she was seeking.

Although a familiar pattern of young learning from old, the twists in this story are very different and interesting. Georg's mysterious past and Clara's need to tell stories and weave pasts from the "normal" people actually create interest. I wanted to know why they had no father, why the other twin died, what Georg's trip to America entailed. I was genuinely upset when he died, when Clara lost it with her mother, when Tamar confessed the pregnancy was a result of rape. I only wish the grandfather had been developed more.

This may have been one of the worst books I've read. I felt like the author was trying too much. Trying to sound deep and descriptive, but ended up having a main character who was pretty annoying. The beginning had so little plot that I skipped ahead to see anything of substance happened. I found the middle interesting, so I trucked on ahead only to find the end mired down down in fake strokes and endless repetition of what happens to the old man again and again. I love reading but hate when books give me nothing.

#1. I suck at writing reviews of. . . anything and this is my first review of a book on here.
Shadow Baby is not long, but it took me longer to read than almost any book I've ever read. The book is narrated by Clara Winter, a girl of 11 or so. Frankly, it was hard reading a naive girls account of self exploration. She is an unreliable narrator and she knows it. It was hard for me to force my way through her multiple fictitious realities, her diatribes on why she likes certain words, and the crux for me was that the author took it upon herself to insert the definitions of some words in order to "enlighten" the reader. I never felt drawn to Clara's story and found myself intrigued by her mother, Tamar and the old man, Goerg Kominsky. The thing that most bothered me was that after 1/2 a book of her attempting to find out Georg's story for her "history project," I feel like I came no closer to understanding him than I did at his introduction. Mostly what we get of him are Clara's dislocated realities (fictious meanderings) of what she supposes has happened in his life and this goes for her mother and grandfather as well. I suppose in some ways the book had a realistic representation of a young girl. A girl uncertain of who she is and exploring her desire to fulfill gaps in an uncertain history, but I am uncertain that Alison McGhee does a good job creating a believable character to tell this story. Perhaps if the narrator had been a little older and a little wiser I would have enjoyed this one a little bit more.

I found this story and the characters incredibly engaging.

If you love obnoxious, psuedo-precocious preteen girls that lie a lot and speak in a maddeningly outdated and unrealistic vernacular, I have some great news for you! You're going to love this!

That's not entirely fair, I can kind of see why some people like this book. It's just that writing from the perspective of an eleven year old is very difficult to do without creating a character you want to kick right in the mouth. It's a fine line, and this book just so did not work for me.