Tween Tuesday: The Shadows by Jacqueline West

4 Double Stuffed ELFudge cookies.

Cover Love:
Yes, I love how we get a glimpse of the house as Olive goes through the painting into a new world.

Why I Wanted to Read This:
The cover attracted me. I bought it last summer but just got around to reading it when I was hanging out at a cabin on the lake a few weeks ago. Here's the synopsis from Good Reads:

Old Ms. McMartin is definitely dead. Now her crumbling Victorian mansion lies vacant. When eleven-year-old Olive and her dippy mathematician parents move in, she knows there's something odd about the place—not least the walls covered in strange antique paintings. But when Olive finds a pair of old spectacles in a dusty drawer, she discovers the most peculiar thing yet: She can travel inside these paintings to a world that's strangely quiet . . . and eerily like her own Yet Elsewhere harbors dark secrets—and Morton, an undersized boy with an outsize temper.

As she and Morton form an uneasy alliance, Olive finds herself ensnared in a plan darker and more dangerous than she could have imagined, confronting a power that wants to be rid of her by any means necessary. It's up to Olive to save the house from the dark shadows, before the lights go out for good.

I Kept Reading Because:
This was an interesting and scary story!

What I Liked (& Didn't):
I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Olive. It didn’t take long to get into the meat of her mystery. She uses her curiosity to follow her instincts. But, she also uses her parents logical approach to problems to give new things a try.

I loved the setting of this old house and all the antiques and knickknacks that Olive finds. I look forward to her exploring the house and finding out more of its secrets.

I hope that Olive is able to solve Morton’s problem. There is a lot of loose ends she can tie up in other stories.

I loved the cats that help Olive on her quest.

I loved that she is able to solve her problems on her own. She is clever and by being imaginative she is able to look past the logic and believe the wondrous things that are happening to her.

To Sum Up: I am excited to read more about Olive’s world. She is a great new heroine and there are a lot of possibilities for her story.

Book from my personal library.