I loved the stars out of this book.Sometimes it's the books I love most that are the hardest for me to review. Probably because the books I love most are hard to classify, a bit odd, a bit spooky, a little off somehow. What can I say about this book? I love how it's written. I loved every single oddball character. From the first chapter I knew I had found something special. I didn't want to get too excited: what if it took a turn for the worst. It never did. Every page was great, and the ending

'The Shadow Year' chronicles the lives of three children living in a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic mother and an absentee father during the 1960's. Despite their difficulties the children are creative and imaginative. Together in their basement they invent a cardboard reconstruction of their hometown. Through a strange combination of mathematics and intuition, Mary, who may be borderline autistic or schizophrenic, directs the structure of the town with its clay characters who represent

Laugh-out-loud funny and creepy too!3/12/15 - I just reread this book and loved it as much as the first time!

I've meant to read Jeffrey Ford for awhile now, and getting a chance at a free book I went with it. I have to say that I really enjoyed it, although it was quite flawed, the flaws themselves added a certain character to the book. The book is sort of a 1960's suburban novel, sort of like The Way the Crow Flies, and it almost feels like it could be set in the same neighborhood as Revolutionary Road , but unlike these two wonderful books, this one departs into a certain magical realism, told wit...

I enjoyed the way that Ford captured the transition from childhood to adolescence. There is a sense of mystery about the world that we lose as we become adults. At the end the line between fantasy and reality is blurred: the peeper who was so real to the adults turns out to be a ghost, and Mr. White is in fact a predator out to do harm (not just the scary guy who lives on the other side of town).The children, meanwhile, accept their lives without question (the father they never see, their alcoho...

_The Shadow Year_ is a skillfully written book that is as much gripping childhood narrative as it is a horror/fantasy story and a wonderful dose of nostalgia. It succeeds at being all three things and I found it a gripping read all around.The story centers on an unnamed narrator (if he was named I missed it), a boy in his final year of elementary school. His life centers around his older brother Jim, occasionally a bit of a torment to the narrator but most of the time a protector and friend he s...

from what i've read of jeffrey ford so far, it seems he bounces back and forth between two basic styles; the first is a dreamlike but intensely focused high fantasy, which could be about virtually ANY POSSIBLE OR IMPOSSIBLE WORLD OR WORLDS, and the second is a kind of incandescently fog-enshrouded semi-autobiographical mode more or less about his childhood growing up on long island... of course the reality of his childhood stories always seems to bleed over and end up about a hair's breadth away...

I read this book about SIX years ago (geez...doesn't seem like it was that long ago)! Talk about original and...well, really, pure genius. This coming of age horror novel really does have it all, including a sense of humor. Now that I've mentioned it, I'm going to have to read it again. My review couldn't possibly do this book the justice it deserves. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Update: I listened to the audio edition in 2019. I think it was better to read the book vs. listen. There was nothing wrong wi...

I’m old enough to remember when neighborhoods were safe enough for children to roam free. It was no big deal for me, along with my playmates, to disappear for hours and hours. A sharp change from today where, if a child is out of sight for more than a few minutes, a parent finds their heart lodged in their throat.The Shadow Year revisits those days of innocence. The author uses a lot of his own childhood in the story (according to his website) which brings the tale to life. It is reminiscent of

I am partial to well written stories told from a child's viewpoint. For instance, I enjoy Martha Grimes' 'Emma Graham' series (boo hoo...only 4 titles) more than her Richard Jury detective. I often think I could write a book if someone held a gun to my head, but I am pretty sure I wouldn't do a good job of writing a story where a child is the narrator. I'm not sure why. My father always called me the perpetual teenager (he didn't mean this a compliment) but I think there was way too much adult i...

I really liked this novel. It had so many different components to it, and together they just worked. I loved that it was set in the 1960s, I loved all of the siblings (especially quirky, somewhat magical Mary) and how they took care of each other and worked together to solve the town mystery. With the nostalgia, the air of creepiness and the way the characters interacted it almost felt "Stranger Things"- like. If that show was set in the 60s, it would be this book.

This is a story with children in it, but it is by no means a story for children. It is a short tale, told in relatively simple terms and from the viewpoint of a child, but it is by no means lightweight. The Shadow Year has been compared to Ray Bradbury's work, and rightly so, up to a point... but even at their darkest, Bradbury's fantasies seem to me altogether less weighty than Ford's.The Shadow Year simply feels real to me - which makes sense; Ford states in his acknowledgements that he drew l...

This book struck so many chords with me. It's such a relatable story of childhood adventures, the feeling of us-against-the-adults, and the bittersweetness of growing up, set around an other-worldly mystery. I couldn't put the book down, but didn't want it to end. Definitely a story that will stick with me for a while.

I would be lying if I said this was really a YA novel, but for all normal purposes, it is written from the point of view of a kid in Elementary school and has all the generalized coming of age elements.However, this is very much for the adults. Nostalgia, sure, harkening back to a small town NY in the early sixties, drawing from all grand features of what I'll call the genre of Epic Grownup Nostalgia with Horror. You've probably seen it around. In A Boy's Life, or SK's IT. Or Stranger Things.The...

A reflective memoir-style narrative with each chapter a vignette of its own evoking a vivid sense of place. The Shadow Year explores memories of childhood, as well as family and the neighborhood community all threaded together via surreal mystery - with mystery's accompanying shades of terror and suspense peppered throughout. Ford employs sharp, authentic dialogue and his prose is replete with sensory imagery. This will take you back to your own childhood, but the genre elements and the gentle b...

Continued proof of my idea that Jeff Ford can write anything, and while I may have doubts when I read the bookflap, once I’ve read that first sentence I can’t stop turning pages until it’s done. The example this time is the coming of age/autobiographical tale not something I would seek out normally. Of course it’s Jeff Ford, so the painful bittersweet memories are mingled with gothic horror, surrealism, ambiguous mystery, and lingering sadness. He takes his excellent novella “Botch Town” and exp...

Coming of age tales set in small-town suburbia - I’m a complete sucker for them. This novel reads like a combination of Bradbury and King. A delightful blend of childhood and the supernatural with some horror elements. I will be sure to check out more books by Jeffrey Ford in the near future.

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Downbeat and Offbeat Fiction: “The Shadow Year” by Jeffrey Ford "Her small stature, dark, and wrinkled complexion, and the silken black strands at the corners of her upper lip made her seem to me at times like some ancient monkey king. When she’d fart while standing, she’d kick her left leg up in the back and say: ‘Shoot him in the pants. The Coat and vest are mine.’” In “The Shadow Year” by Jeffrey Ford The world-wide craze for superh...

Jeffory Ford shows me yet again why he is my favorite author. This book stands as one of the most striking pieces of fiction I read last year. It's a coming-of-age novel and a statement on dysfunctional families that partially masks itself as a creepy mystery story. A creepy face in the window, a prowler in the neighborhood, murders, missing children, supernatural happenings, and laugh out loud moments. The time is the 1960s and the location is Long Island, during a kinder, more gentler time whe...

Resonant yarn of smalltown life in the 60s is reminiscent of Stephen King's novella The Body in its mood and characters. The unnamed kid narrator and his older (but not especially wiser) brother Jim crack wise as they prowl their neighborhood to foil a stalker, or a peeping tom, or maybe even one of each. Their family is stuffed with lovable oddballs--for example their mystically gifted, roll-up-smoking little sister Mary and their grandpa, a former boxer whose foo-dog bac...