What Waits in the Shadows – Wil Forbis

3/5 stars

I have very mixed feelings on What Waits in the Shadows. On one hand, the summary really played this book up and got me excited to read it. On the other hand, the execution of it didn’t quite live up to the hype I built.

I loved Lisa as a character, though I felt like she could be a bit of a pushover at times then suddenly do a complete 180. I had a lot of respect for her digging herself out of all the horrible things that happened to her and going into a field that would allow her to help others like her. It was really poetic in a way, especially in the end. The rest of the characters, in contrast, felt underdeveloped. Her fiancé felt like an accessory at best who quickly fell into the scumbag mold, her psychiatrist was self-serving and selfishly motivated, and her supposed best friend was barely relevant to Lisa’s life. I wish that the supporting characters, especially Lisa’s mom, would’ve been more prevalent to the story.

There seemed to be a lot of disdain towards attorneys, especially public defenders, in this. Having worked for attorneys since I was old enough to work, I’ve heard all the jokes and put downs about how useless they are. However, that doesn’t make it any less frustrating when I see it in books. Sure, there are bad attorneys, but not all of them are, and everyone seems to conveniently forget that when portraying them in books.

The inclusion of angels and demons threw me off a bit. It kind of came from nowhere and didn’t quite tie in as much as I think it could have with a little more lead in throughout the book. The way that Wil chose to write this angle was rather unique, so I think it could’ve been something really cool if it had been more present in the story overall. Give the reader a better sense of something “other” going on; parts of this dragged a bit as it seemed like anything spooky took a long time to happen after the initial burst at the beginning.

What Waits in the Shadows wasn’t a bad book! I think it could’ve used a little more in the way of execution, but it’s the author’s first, and Wil had such an interesting concept with this. I’m definitely intrigued by what else he’ll craft, and I can’t wait to see how he grows as an author with each new work!