Customer Reviews

The Shadow Club (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

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Jared Mercer was a normal ninth grader at his junior high school. He followed all the rules, never cut class, and hung out with the "right" people. Almost everything worked out the way it was supposed to, and no one suspected he was unhappy about anything. But he had one problem. Since he could remember, he was always second best at the one thing he was truly good at--running. In fact, the only person that he could not beat was Austin Pace, a casual friend who took pride in belittling all of Jared's efforts. Although it first begins as an annoyance, the constant rivalry becomes unbearable for Jared. When his close friend Cheryl proposes that they form a club for all their classmates who are second best at something, Jared agrees and suggests that they play harmless tricks on everyone else's rivals. At first this proves to be a safe and satisfactory way to air their feelings and get revenge, but the Shadow Club soon realizes that if they don't want to be caught, they have to stop their pranks for a while.
The only problem is, the Shadow Club had already been observed, and the outsider who's been watching them has started to talk. So when more dangerous pranks are being pulled on their enemies, everyone thinks that the Shadow Club, which is now believed to be a gang, is to blame. They become so enraged at being framed, that they nearly kill their main suspect, the boy who spied on them. But in order to find the true culprit, they have to admit that what they've done is wrong and face the harsh reality of the truth.
The Shadow Club is a book that is easy to relate to. You can identify with the characters feelings and emotions as they struggle to understand what they really want, not just what they think they want. However, I suggest you find a time when you don't have many things planned before you read it, because once you start, you won't be able to put it down. It is a true suspense story that not only keeps you turning pages, but attaches you to the characters. I recommend it for ages 10 and up.

I have been reading the Shadow Club to my 7th graders for more than 10 years. The humor, especially in the character of Ralphy Sherman, keeps the class listening. The suspense builds to the point that I have students begging me not to stop reading. Many students tried to buy the book because they just couldn't wait for me to finish reading. I was happy for a few years that it was out of print, so they couldn't find it to read ahead of me.
There are many lessons that apply directly to children of middle school age, and my favorite is looking at how the students laughed at Tyson McGaw at the beginning, but feel for him at the end of the book. Hopefully they will look closer at individuals and not make fun of them because they are different.
I have never had a student who didn't like this book and it is the only one that I have read that when I finish, the students applaud.

I have recntly had the Shadow Club read to me by my 6th grade teacher. I believe this book is wonderful. It is incredibly intersting and i garauntee anyone from 9-13 will love this book. It also has a great moral, and teaches a valuable lesson. Trust Me, This book is excellent read it!!

This story is about seven kids that are second best at everything. They started a club. At first it was just pranks, but then somebody started framing them. Now it wasn't a joke at all, people were getting hurt. The members of the club were wondering who was pulling the pranks, and when one of the members did...........

As every teenager knows there is the popular group that always has the best kids at everything. Then there is the group of the kids that are forgotten, or lost in the Shadows, and are second best at everything. Jared is one of those kids, he's the second best runner in the school, and Austin is the fastest most agile person in the school, or even the town. Jared has a friend named Cheryl that is the second best singer in the school next to her cousin Rebecca who has a voice of an angel. Jared and Cheryl are tired of being second best, so they start their own group of kids at the school, formed of all the kids that are second best at band, running, singing, second smartest, second best looking...ect. Together they are "The Shadow Club," and together they plot to humiliate and make all the "unbeatables" look as bad as possible without hurting them. Well, when they start out they only were doing small practical jokes, nothing to seriously harm anybody, but when jealously adds up things start getting extremely out of hand.
The Shadow Club is the best and most exciting book that I have read that is written about, and for teenagers. This book has most emotions you can feel all wrapped inside it, and also has a great message for young adults or older adults.

As an English professor and an avid reader, it's been a source of distress that one of my grandchildren doesn't like to read. He is fast-paced and doesn't like to slow down long enough to read; like so many of my students, he'll "wait for the movie." Recently he told me that his class at school had been reading THE SHADOW CLUB and that he had been reading ahead because he loved it. I bought it for him on the spot and purchased THE SHADOW CLUB RISING, the sequel, and two other books by Shusterman as well. He was excited to have them and has told me at length what he likes about the books: the constant action and drama, the characters sympathetic to his age group (11), etc. I thank Neal Shusterman for turning my grandson on to reading at long last!

The Shadow Club
By: Neal Shusterman

Review done by: A Mid-Prairie Teen Student

You would have no idea what you would be expecting if you got a book titled The Shadow Club, I sure didn't. The Shadow Club is a great book having middle school to high schooled aged students making mistakes and seeing the consequences in the end.
Jared, a middle school aged kid, is the main kid in this story. He is the second best runner in his school and hates being second best. He absolutely hates Eric, the best runner in school, and would do absolutely anything he could to be better than Eric. This is where the trouble started.
Jared's friend Cheryl, the second best singer, wanted to start a club called the Shadow Club. This means for people to come to this club if they're second best in something. Like second best singer, second smartest person in school, and even second prettiest girl in school. All these second best kids formed this club and got themselves into trouble without even knowing it.
This is quite a story and it is written by Neal Shusterman a fantastic author. He is an American author of books for young readers, and also a screenwriter. He has won and award called the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for The Schwa Was Here, and he was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He now lives in Orange County, California with his four children. So as you have seen he has a busy life but he has certainly used some of his time to write great books.
This is an amazing book but I'm not going to tell you what happened in the end. Once you read it, it will shock you incredibly as you will see. I will tell you though that it teaches great things like making friends, the trouble you can get yourself into with just starting little things, and how much hate can really hurt someone else's life.
I dare you to read this book even if you think you're the best person in your school. Just go and read this book so that you can see the secrets some second best people may be thinking right now.

There are the winners, the people who are first all the time, never losing. Then there are the second bests, almost coming in first. That is what the book 'The Shadow Club' is all about, beating the best.

Jared Mercer is the second best runner, second best to Austin Pace. This Austin teases him everyday, until one day, it's too much. That was the start of the Shadow Club.

Jared and Cheryl, best friends, decide on five other people to be in their club. Randall is the second best swimmer, Jason, the second best trumpet player, Abbie, second most popular girl, Karin "O.P." Han, second smartest, and Darren, the second best basketball player. They play small, seemingly harmless pranks - painting the swimmer's toenails, giving out pages of the most popular girl's diary - but then someone listens in on a meeting, Tyson McGaw. Tyson is a foster child with no friends. Then when someone starts to frame hime, things go spiralling out of control Tyson is all to blame. But are things really how they seem?

Shusterman is a great writer. You can really relate to the book which has a ton of detail. It keeps you on the edge and so does the following book, 'The Shadow Club Rising'.

~AD

I can really picture this book in real life. Even though I'm only 10. The things the characters do and say teach you that you have to be very careful before you say or do something. I thought that this was a very realistic book. This book is set in a highschool and there are the number ones who get all the glory and the number twos who hate the number ones. All these number twos get together and form the shadow club where they play tricks on the number ones. But then tricks happen that the club didn't do. Who did them? Why? Read the Shadow Club to find out.

Meet the second-bests: a group of kids who, although they have one thing they're best at, still get beat daily by the "unbeatables." Although these kids are good kids, well-behaved, smart, athletic, interesting, their lives are being ruined by those who always seem to be one step ahead, stealing the limelight and rubbing it in until you just wish they'd never been born.

Thus is the basis for THE SHADOW CLUB, a secret group of seven kids who decided to get back at those who make their lives miserable by playing harmless pranks on them--pranks that will embarass them before their admirers, and give the second-besters their just due.

Except revenge, as revenge always seems to do, comes back to bite you in the butt. Pranks start getting out of control, even though they're not being comitted by the Shadow Club members. Someone's out to sabotage their club, and one of the "unbeatables" could wind up getting seriously hurt--even killed. As the Club seeks to get the biggest loser in school, Tyson McGaw, to confess to the pranks, the Shadow Club comes to realize that they might not be the all-around good kids that they thought they were.

What started out as fun is turning into something darker, and no one seems to know how to make it stop.

THE SHADOW CLUB is a great read by Neal Shusterman. Dealing with human nature, the fact that kids can traumatize each other more than anyone else can, and the fact that we all have anger inside of us is forefront in the story. A great read!