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Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: AudiobookHub Recommendation
Chapter 2: — Birth, Death, and the Second Shadow
Chapter 3: — Surveillance, Small Tasks, and Heavy Grief
Chapter 4: — Neighbors, Fathers, and Fragile Victories
Chapter 5: — When the World Takes More
Chapter 6: — The Kid with Two Shadows and Too Many Questions
Chapter 7: — Old Halls, New Loves, and the Weight of Harm
Chapter 8: — Building a Different Kind of Family
Chapter 9: — Ash, Flight, and the Public Stage
Chapter 10: — Messages in the Dark, Miles on the Road
Chapter 11: — Carrying What Can’t Be Erased
Description
In a near-future America obsessed with punishment, an extra shadow is strapped to anyone deemed guilty—an open-air mark meant to shame you forever. Kris’s wife, Beau, dies in childbirth, and their newborn daughter is immediately assigned a second shadow. Under cameras in every room, Kris stumbles through sleepless nights, impossible rules, and a grief that feels like another body in the bed. She finds unexpected kinship with a neighbor, a halting truce with her estranged father, and eventually a fierce, complicated love with Michelle, a former Department insider. As the kid—funny, stubborn, and musically gifted—grows into her own firebrand spirit, the family learns the cost of survival and the power of choosing each other. This is a story about loss that widens into rebellion, about shame that loosens into tenderness, and about building a family that refuses to look away.
Who Should Listen
- Listeners who love literary dystopias rooted in intimate, everyday lives
- Queer readers seeking a fierce, tender portrait of chosen family and grief
- Fans of stories about resistance, motherhood, and growing up under surveillance
- Book clubs ready to talk about punishment, forgiveness, and how communities form
- Anyone who needs a reminder that love can be both messy and brave