Where No Shadow Stays is the YA horror debut of Sara Hashem. The ending was, in true Hashem-style, heartbreaking. It left me staring at the wall, thinking about it, but in a good way.

Yes, I am petty enough to remove a full star from the enjoyment rating JUST bc of that ending. That being said, I really enjoyed the writing and banter.

I definitely do think this book is horror. Don't recommend reading this with the lights off, it IS creepy. I don't read much horror, but just because of this I might consider reading more of it! I really enjoyed the horror elements of this.

I LOVED our main character, Mina. I just adored their banter. Mina is such a relatable main character for me. I really liked reading about a character with Egyptian heritage, bc it's my own and I don't think I've actually read an Egyptian main character before. I especially love the detail Hashem added about the crazy amount of middle names Egyptians have. I actually thought this was the norm growing up, up until I discovered the internet.

I do really wish we had more scenes or got to know Mina's friends more. They seemed pretty interesting and Mina mentioned them often, but we didn't actually see them in a lot of scenes. (At least, from my memory.)

I did like the plot, however, imo, it did feel slightly rushed. I think Hashem's better with writing series than standalones, but it was not much of a big deal for me.

I'd like to point out that this is YA, so it's pretty different from her adult novel, The Jasad Heir. If you're going into this expecting that kind of energy, you'll be disappointed. I am the target audience of this book, hence why I enjoyed it.

As much as I enjoyed and loved this book, I don't think it left a very big impact on me like The Jasad Heir, which was why I didn't rate it higher than 4 stars.