Shadowland

The Mediator, Book 1

By: Meg Cabot

Narrated by: Johanna Parker

Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

Meg Cabot is the New York Times best-selling author of The Princess Diaries series. Susannah Simon is a teenager who can see ghosts. As a bridge between the living and the dead, she gets called on to help ghosts take care of unfinished business. After she and her mother move from New York City to sunny California, Suze meets the sexiest boy she's ever seen, too bad he's a ghost, too.

©2005 Meg Cabot (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC

Not for adults

I bought this book mostly because so many reviews said it could be enjoyed by adults, but I disagree. The plot is interesting, but the delivery is full of cliches and trite teenage emotions. Almost every character except the main two are flat and obviously exist only to fulfill plot necessities.
The narrator was very good at portraying Suze, the main character. But she also had an annoying habit of speaking unnaturally slowly and deeply when performing male voices. It was eerie and distracted me from the story.
Nevertheless, the plot was intriguing enough to capture my interest so I give this book an overall average rating.

Absolutely Love..

I absolutely loved this book. It was an excellent read and definitely fun for the older reader as well. It keeps you on the edge of your seat and you really are not sure how things will turn out, for the better or not?
But I was not let down and I don't think anybody else would be either. Read it! :-)

Should appeal to teenage girls

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature

Suze is a mediator — she can see the ghosts of people whose souls have not been able to move on. She helps them resolve their earthly issues so they can go wherever they’re supposed to go. She doesn’t know what happens to them after they go — just that it’s her job to facilitate their departure.

Because of her weird ability, Suze is not a normal teenager. People find her a little strange and she has trouble making friends and fitting in. Now she’s moving away from New York, where she grew up. Her father died several years ago and her mother has married a man in California. She will have a new family, a new school, and a new life. Her mother, who doesn’t believe in the ghosts, hopes the changes will be beneficial for Suze.

As soon as Suze enters her new bedroom overlooking the ocean, she realizes that her “problems” have not gone away. There’s the ghost of a hot guy named Jesse in her room and she’s having trouble dislodging him. Then, on her first day of school at a Catholic mission, the ghost of a girl who recently committed suicide is haunting her locker. So, right away, Suze has two new “clients” to take care of. Fortunately, she also discovers that she’s not the only person who can see ghosts — the priest who runs the school can also see them and he says there are other mediators besides the two of them. He promises to be a helpful resource.

Shadowland is the first book in Meg Cabot’s MEDIATOR series. I enjoyed spending a few hours with Suze. She’s a pleasant protagonist who’s brave, tender-hearted, confident and interesting. There were a few other admirable characters in her story, though some were also stock YA characters (e.g., the beauty queen). Perhaps the most interesting character is Jesse, the ghost in Suze’s room. He’s a young man from the 19th century. We don’t know much about him yet, but I think his storyline, which takes place in the past, will give this series more depth.

I think the best thing I can say about Shadowland is that even though it’s a little shallow and predictable, it didn’t annoy me like most other YA paranormal fantasies do. Maybe that doesn’t seem like much of a commendation, but coming from someone who hasn’t been a teenager in over a couple of decades and who thought teenage girls were annoying even back then, that’s something. Shadowland should be quite appealing to teenage girls (or even boys) and it features a likeable heroine who, so far, is fun to hang out with and makes a respectable role model.

I read the audiobook version of Shadowland which was produced by Recorded Books and narrated by Johanna Parker who I liked quite well. I picked it up on sale at Audible and liked it well enough that I’ll be on the lookout for the rest of the series in future Audible sales.

Captivating

This book was wonderful. As an adult I really enjoyed this book. Meg Cabot is a great narrator and the story kept your interest. In fact Ill be starting the next book in this series to listen to and will probably get the last 2 thats available. It is just a fun book!

Cute Easy Read

Cute read. I enjoyed it, but it was a little flat . But good for you no adult.

Entertaining book

I love Meg Cabot- no bad there. However, the narrator grates on my nerves- as a native New Yorker, I appreciate her not doing that weird fake NY accent people like to do that makes New Yorkers sound like mindless thugs - but could you maybe lose the southern accent???

Good opening book for the series

I’ve read this book and enjoyed it, and was really pleased with the reading as well as this audiobook. The whole series is really good, so listening just allows me to make my commute more than the same drive time songs on the radio.

Very bad language for a teen book

I thought this book had a good story and it was pretty well written but I thought it had really bad language for a book directed towards teenage girls. I really loved the Princess Diary movies so I was really looking forward to reading this book but I was very dissapointed with the language. Can't anyone tell a story without using curse words. Very dissapointing. I wouldn't let my daughter listen to this book.

Book did not age well

I downloaded the audio book for some nostalgia. The story is entertaining enough and the narration was done well, but as an adult consuming this book in 2022, this isn't something I would want my niblings to read. There is a lot problematic speech in the book.

Overall, there's a lot of shallow judgemental descriptions of characters from Suze's inner dialog. I guess to show that she is tough.

There's a lot of casual homophobia, and some blatant homophobia. The f slur is used at least twice.

And the ghosts death story is pretty bad, and the mental health aspect isn't touched on at all, except to make jokes. The ghost in question is a teen girl that died by suicide after getting dumped. But the girl stalked the boy first, killed herself at his house, and as a ghost wants to kill him first out of hatred and then so they can be together and she can make him take her back. The book definitely doesn't handle suicide or mental health with any sort of seriousness or grace.