Review: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E Schwab

I really enjoyed this book. It was a bit heavy and while I like lighter, peppier stories, this one really spoke to me.

I love V.E Schwab’s writing style. She has so many epic quotes!

This review is really short because I wasn’t too terribly keen on this one. It was good, but I like Vicious better. My favorite by her is Cassidy Blake. This one was only just okay.

Also the voice for the audio book was terrible.

Overall rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
(5/5 Stars. )

Rating breakdown:

Prose: 👍👍👍👍👍
Plot: 😄😄😄😄😄
Characterization: 👍👍👍👍
Boredom meter: 🔥🔥🔥

More about A Darker Shade of Magic

A Darker Shade of Magic, from #1 New York Times bestselling author V.E. Schwab

Kell is one of the last Antari―magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes―Red London―and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.

Get your copy here on Amazon.

Book Review: Vicious by V.E Schwab

I have no idea why it took me so long to discover V.E Schwab especially because the kinds of books she writes are the kinds of books I read. And also she has the most enormous following of any author I’ve ever seen before in my life?

Vicious was fantastic. I love stories where there’s no real cut-and-dry hero or villain. This literally checked something off of every list of narrative stories I like. And siren characters like Serena are just…*kisses fingers* my favorite thing.

Honestly I’m so excited for the second one, but I’m taking a detour through A Darker Shade of Magic and the Cassidy Blake series first since I have some catching up to do before I meet her.

More about Vicious

A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn’t automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.

Get your copy here on Amazon.