joshbrown 's review for:

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

3.0

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This was...fine. I'm honestly quite tired of the chase quest thing so many of these fantasy books are doing. The beginnings of these stories are allowed to world build and create intrigue, but once the plot turns to "bring magic filled Macguffin from point A to B" the world actually seems to shrink because there's no longer any time to stop and explore it. And with that breakneck pace, there also isn't any time for the characters to evolve. For example, we have to be told how close one of the protagonists is to his adoptive brother, because they sure don't get to spend any quality time together in the actual story. I don't know, it's not horrible, it just seems like it's already been cut down to the 110 minute film it will eventually be adapted to.