1. I really enjoyed this book as it explains the fear of Stalin's advisors telling him he was wrong and the sheer madness of Stalin's communist regime.

My favourite part of the book was when Misha (the main character) finds out in his apartment in the Kremlin, that the Nazi's are planning to cross the Polish border and advance on communist Russia. I liked this because Misha was caught completely unaware as Soviet propaganda said that Soviet-Nazi relations had never been better, this displays how paranoid Stalin was about keeping secrets from the Russian public and distorting the truth.

The history in the book is extremely realistic. He would have to research about the inner workings of the Soviet Union as no normal person would know about the deep history of the Union. I now want to know about the Soviet Union's backbone, ideas, Stalin and how they put the regime into play. Yes, as I like historical books, I would like to read about his other WWII stories. This book explains the story of the side of the war that is not usually told and should be celebrated.

By Joel

2. I found this book really difficult to get in to at first but it was really informative about life in Stalin's Russia and how people really didn't know what was going on due to Soviet Propaganda.  This made me want to find out more about what life was like in Stalin's Russia and how he managed to completely control peoples' lives and ideas.  The detail however made the story quite slow which is probably why I found it so difficult to get in to.  The main character Misha is quite nice as a person and that eventually helps him in the end but I prefer characters to have major flaws because it makes them more interesting and I didn't feel that Misha had that really which made it difficult to connect with him and engage with the story.  I'd recommend this story to people interested in Stalin's Russia and who enjoy a really likeable main character on an adventure.

By Lewis

3. At the start of the book I found the character names confusing from English perspective, but I read it again and it made sense. I think that the story line was very unpredictable. It made me as a reader want to never put it down of ,what I read the story worked well in its scene during world war 2. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history.

By Toby

4. Red Shadow, written by Paul Dowswell is a great book that fantastically depicts the terror in the USSR at the time of WW2. As somebody who loves war in particular when it comes to history, I was instantly compelled to read it when I saw the cover, particularly due to us currently studying the USSR in history. I cannot say I was disappointed, as it depicts the terror and overall historical scene well, though the book does drop a bit with the plot.

The entire story revolves around the main character, Misha and his female friend Valya. Well, they both live in the Kremlin, though the backstory of Misha's family seems to be a tad inventive, being a story involving his father saving Stalin in the civil war. They also are (quietly) against the system, continuously worrying about the war and seeing the inequality and evil of the system.

I however do have one problem with the book that stems from Paul Dowswell's writing style. I have previously read Ausländer and I felt when reading this that the basic storyline was very similar; Boy who isn't really strongly in favour of Government, Girl who is ALSO against it, things go bad, they get fake IDs and they escape. The ending of Red Shadow even including a Chekov's ... Bomb(?) which diverts the ending to the same, happy(ish) ending, instead of a sudden finish. The closest that the book comes to showing an actual character with story die is a German soldier who is killed the same chapter he is introduced. Apart from that, multiple others are tortured or killed off off screen, due to the perspective of Misha being used for all but one chapter. These characters though did not have much personality put to them apart from when it is noticed what has happened to them or just before, making it feel a bit superfluous.

Overall though, I did find the book interesting, although I am not sure how much of that is based on my own interest of that time period and how much on the story. The book relies heavily on the surrounding environment and not so much on the actual storyline, reusing plot points that have been changed to accommodate the different background. As such, I will be interested in what other books Paul releases, as I do like how it is written, though I wish that the story would feel more new and unique rather than reused.

By Colin

5. For me the book didn't appeal to the types of books I like but it could appeal to people who don't mind having a slow start. It didn't catch me straight away and I found it hard to read. Each page felt like a novel of snow that I had to plough through. I thought that it would pick up at about a quarter of the way through but I stayed at the same speed of reading. In matter of fact the further I got through the tougher it got such as at the start I thought it would pick up eventually but as it went along I realised how wrong I was. From a novel of deep snow to an encyclopaedia saying the same thing over and over again.

But as I said this might appeal to some people who wouldn't mind crawling along digging for gold material.  5/10

By Cameron

6. This book was a very well written, complicated and descriptive piece that will leave you thrilled from the start to the end. The book is very interesting as it describes in detail about Stalin's reign and the fear of the NKVD and spreading information that could get you killed or arrested. This fear is mentioned a lot in the book as it progresses.

I personally was very confused from the start to the middle but then began to understand after continuously checking back in the book. The mention of Russian places and types of planes was the main confusing factor that left me flabbergasted as these words were Russian and was continuously getting mentioned.

However this book was very historically accurate as it included facts from the 2^nd World War and how good Stalin was in leading his country to victory against Germany. Also it had thoughts and fears of the characters living in that time. 4 stars.

By Matthew