A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

So, sorry I have been away for ages. I started a new job, and this job is an actual 100% adult life job where I turn up 5 out of 7 days a week and work for eight hours a day. I even got my own desk.

I’ve spent the past month getting into shape and into new habits to work around this new job, and I finally feel there and not exhausted and like I can blog today! Yay!

This review is a touch overdue, and I still have a tonne of scary, Halloween books to review but, soon. I swear soon.

So this is my review of A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, who on top of writing awesome books such as this, she is also insanely nice and sweet. I recommend following her on Twitter because it’s pretty quality.

On with the review!!!

A Darker Shade of Magic is, as I put in my first bullet point in my notes; a “fantastic story about hot magic people.”Though it is so much more than that. This story is a story of two people. The first one, Kell, is the last of his kind – a traveller, who can create and step through doors that seperate worlds. His main points of travel are called London – and all of them are very different. There is Red London, where Kell lives and where magic thrives with it’s community. There is Grey London, which is the London of our world, the one we all know and sort of love but also hate. There is White London, where residents aim to control magic through violent and desperate means. And finally, there is Black London, which was struck by a plague of magic and sealed away.

The other person this story is about, is a wonderful woman named Delilah Bard. Reckless and thirsty for adventure, Lila dreams of escaping her mundane and run down life in Grey London, yearning for a life as a pirate.

Then they meet. And it is up to them both to return something dangerous and awful from the streets of Black London.

First off, the world building in this book is goddamn wonderful.T he magical language is beautiful and amazing; I loved reading the commands that Antari gave to their magic, to make it manifest and work. And on top of that, magic just couldn’t commanded – it has to be asked. Magic was a real, breathing creature that lived and thrived and honestly, did whatever the fuck it wanted. It was a really original take that I adored.

 

I LOVED the concept of the four London’s and how you have to travel between them in a particular order, and how they sort of line up and how the ultimate fall of Black London had an effect on each London and how magic is received in each city. I can’t say much more than that without spoiling too much, or at least giving away things that I feel are best to go into the book not knowing about, but each London was so different and fresh and exciting read about – even Grey London, which is supposed to represent our standard world.

A lot of my love for basically everything started at the heart of any book, which is the writing style. The writing style was absolutely wonderful; beautiful and descriptive and so amazingly enchanting. I felt like I was really watching those fights, seeing these characters – the action scenes are super tense and breath-taking. I could so easily lose myself in this book for long stretches at a time, clutching the sides of the poor thing when fights took place. I could just see everything so clearly in my mind, it was like a movie playing out. I just. Flawless.

I grew to love the characters so hard; Lila Bard, looking for adventure no matter the cost, Kell who just wanted to belong in the world so bad he smuggled from others illegally so he could have trinkets and try to find his home in them. (I also wrote alongside this bullet points in my notes “like how tragic are you bae?” which I think is a really accurate statement within a question.)Holland who is a character I have a lot of feelings about. Like, a fucking lot of feelings about. I wanted to hate him, but I felt so fucking heartbroken for him all the time. And can I just point Rhy who is OPENLY NOT STRAIGHT I’M JUST SO. So pleased. Kinda shipped him with Holland a teeny bit for a brief spell. You can all assume how well that ended for me with my long and tragic underwater graveyard. There were also some great side characters too who I also grew to love for their individuality – I did worry for these characters, did grow to care for all of them.

The main villains of this book were fucking great – genuinely formidable and terrifying, the Dane twins rule White London with boned fists and terrible tongues and any and every interaction the narrative had with them was tense, scary and nausea inducing. I thrive off of that in my villains, so I am just beyond pleased.

My one and only sadness to this book, is literally the ending. I won’t spoil it here, though I will be adding spoiler riddled bullet points below from my notes, but I really really wanted a certain thing to happen and it didn’t happen. However, in Schwab I trust, and realistically it was still a good ending. There’s also going to be a sequel coming in February, A Gathering of Shadows which, by the damn way, the COVER IS BEAUTIFUL. GORGEOUS. I CAN’T WAIT TO HAVE THEM BOTH SITTING TOGETHER.

This book gets a solid 5/5 for me. It’s a wonderful read, filled with epic fantasy, a fresh take on magic and parallel universes, incredible fighting scenes, brilliant and vibrant characters and excellent writing that had me engaged from the moment I started.

Below, I have now attached some bullet points from my notes. The top few aren’t spoilers at all, and then I have labelled in big bold letters which ones are spoilers, so please, please don’t say I did not warn you.

I enjoyed A Darker Shade of Magic thoroughly. I was always told to read Victoria Schwab’s work, and I am so glad I began my journey here.

Fare thee well,

Fran.

Bullet points:

 

• I want Kell’s coat – 10/10 would save me from a fashion disaster
• OPENLY BI/PANSEXUAL CHARACTER.
• Did I mention the magic and how straight up fantastically written it is? Because fuck me, A+ on world building.
• Oh also all Antari/ blood magicians are marked by a single pure black eye. How fucking sick. How fucking cool. I’m just. All the right buttons.

 

 

SPOILER BULLET POINTS

• HOLLAND DESERVED BETTER. You poor fucking tortured, shit I was so scared of him and so infuriated by I knew he was being controlled, and then his fucking relief when he lets Kell win and stab him so he can not be controlled anymore I want to fucking die.
• I HAD TO STOP MYSELF CHEERING ON THE TRAIN WHEN THEY KILLED THE FUCKING DANE SIBLINGS FUCK. But they were really fucking great villains who felt genuinely formidable.
• I WANTED TO SEE BLACK LONDON. I WANTED THE BOOK TO END WITH KELL IN BLACK LONDON LEARNING HOW TO FIGHT AND CONTROL WHAT’S HAPPENING AND FIND OUT LILA STUCK A TOTEM INTO HIS POCKET I WANTED BLACK LONDON. God I was so hype for Black London and it never came. I am holding high hopes it’s in the next book.