The story takes place in Gritten. Paul hasn't been in Gritten for the last 25 years. There must have been a reason for that. The setting gives it a spooky feeling in the book. He came back because of his mom. His mom was in the hospital. There were some parts of the story I could relate to. In one part, Paul didn't know to say or what he wanted to hear to his mother. A few years back, my grandfather was in the hospital. I had no idea what to say to say because I was never close to him just like Paul and his mother. It had been a while since I saw my grandfather (about 5 years) and for Paul he hadn't seen his mother for about 25 years. I had 2 favorite quotes from "The Shadows." One of them was: "You know how it can feel like you put something away and forget about it, and it's like it's gone? But then you realize it's actually been there the whole time." I feel like that sometimes with my older items. When I was packing up when I was moving, I found some items that I thought I lost forever. The same thing can happen with friends. You think they forget about you or left you, but they will always be there for you. Another one of my favorite quotes was "Dreams are a patchwork, stitched together from the things that happen to us in our waking lives. But sometimes the opposite can be true." I liked this quote because I find it true. One thing I didn't like a lot about this book was that it was really long. I am not used to reading long books, but overall it was good.