This sapphic horror novella is described as The Last of Us meets Bird Box, so you KNOW I had to read it.
It’s short and fast paced, so I managed to finish it in a few hours. The book follows Riley, who fled to the country side to escape a horrible rage/insanity virus that causes people to kill each other. You can’t look in people’s eyes, that’s how you get infected. She has had no human contact in years until Ellis moves in down the road and they are drawn to each other. But Riley is losing it rapidly, and Ellis might be the reason.
I love an unreliable narrator, and Sunny Moraine knocked it out of the park with this one. Riley is almost totally mad, by the end, and watching her slowly get worse over the course of the book had me on the edge of my seat.
The pure isolation and total loss of self present in the narrative was bone chilling, and I loved that the destruction of society wasn’t instant, but rather a slow decay as everything falls apart.
Overall really loved this one, 5/5 stars

I was invited by the publisher to read and review this title--thank you for the ARC!

This was short, but I found it really interesting! I assume it was for a reason but this felt so disorienting to read, and Riley's confusion and fear were both really immersive. I'm sure this comparison will be made a ton but the plot bears some resemblance to Josh Malerman's BIRD BOX (due to the focus on looking/covering eyes) but this plot was much more compelling to me than whatever BIRD BOX had going on.

I felt Riley's mistrust and paranoia and even had moments where I'd look up from reading and it would follow me back into my own reality. I do most of my reading on the train to and from work and I'd look around the train car like someone was going to lunge at me and then I'd just feel silly. So it was definitely immersive. The isolated setting was effective as well!

I won't say too much about it but the horror but it was super gnarly and I was surprised at how graphic some of it was. It didn't feel over the top at all given the rest of the plot and the reasoning behind it all but some of it was visceral and ROUGH. I really liked this and I might not have come across it otherwise!

(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Your Shadow Half Remains, by Sunny Moraine, is fast-paced, psychological, apocalypse novella, centered in this case, not so much in the apocalypse per se, but in what this new, desolated situation does to one’s mind.
Riley, the main character, has not seen a human face in a long time. Like in Josh Malerman’s Bird Box, something happens when you gaze upon somebody’s eyes; it makes you crazy and violent. Due to this, Riley is now living in isolation, in the lakeside of a forest. She orders everything online, she walks, she reads… She just tries to survive.
But something is happening to her. The first thing the reader sees her do is throw her mobile phone into the muddy waters of the lake. Then, someone moves to a nearby house. And then it all transforms into a spiral of violence and doubt. What is real? What is not?
I really like unreliable narrators, and Riley’s case is just amazing. She does not only know what is happening, what she is doing, but there are also moments in which she imagines a second scenario. But again, which one is the made up one and what just happened?
I think this novella has the perfect length for the story it is trying to tell. Sunny Moraine’s writing (and most of all, descriptions) are fantastic, and the last third of the story is just madness; deranged, gory, madness.

This book was very creepy and unsettling in a good way. The author does an excellent job of keeping you feeling a sense of unease the entire story. The pandemic mixed with a touch of gothic will be the perfect winter read.

I read this novella in one sitting--it was fast-paced and engaging to read all the way through. This one proved that post apocalyptic and infection type stories can still be fresh and exciting. A decent amount of gore which is always welcome in my opinion...I gagged, yet relished in the brief cannibal-like snippet 💁🏻‍♀️ (I hope that's ok to mention??)

While I definitely don't oppose the fact that this was a novella, I would welcome if it were a little longer.

The Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine is an intense psychodrama wherein we watch the complete mental unraveling of the main character, Riley. The story takes place years after a pandemic of unknown origin spreads around the world. People who look into the eyes of an infected person lose their minds & kill each other. In response to this threat, people have killed themselves, blinded themselves, or isolated themselves to avoid eye contact with others. Riley lives alone in the mountains. She’s been almost entirely cut off & safe until Ellis appears. He announces that he is her new neighbor. Ellis' arrival triggers fear, suspicion & desire in Riley, which makes her question everything. As a reader, I couldn't tell what was real & what was delusion. The story is tightly written, draws you in, & keeps you reading til the end - & the ending is excellent.

Dreamlike, haunted, and a tad deranged. What a fun and horrible time to experience paranoia together with the narrator.

So creepy! Funny thing is, I just finished watching The Last of Us right before I started this book! So the idea of “being infected” with a horrible virus was easy to imagine. This story really deals with our mental health when faced with isolation and how important having physical interactions is. What is the truth and what is madness when the world is falling apart.

This was a challenging piece for me to assess. The initial concept immediately grabbed my attention, as I have a fondness for both Birdbox and The Last of Us. While there were moments that sent a chill down my spine and created a captivating atmosphere, the overall story left me wanting more. I must admit that I nearly considered not completing it.

Despite its brevity as a novella, it still felt excessively verbose. The author employs an abundance of words to convey very little, as the plot of this story unfolds rather slowly. Much of the writing almost comes across as stream of consciousness.

I understand that the author perhaps aimed to emphasize Riley's decline into madness and departure from reality, yet I believe they exerted excessive effort to give it a more literary fiction quality than it truly possesses. If the story were trimmed by approximately one hundred pages or so, I am certain the narrative would flow much more smoothly.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. I was immediately drawn to the cover, so creepy and interesting. I enjoyed this fast read. I did have a hard time not comparing it to Bird Box for most of the book though. By the end of the book I feel like the author was able to move away from the similarities of bird box and I enjoyed the psychological turmoil that was developed. A few really creepy moments that I enjoyed but I feel like the book ended abruptly.