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A review by jdhacker
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
adventurous
dark
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
Not a bad book, and I see why it was popular, but...
I had about 3 false starts with this since a copy found its way onto my shelves. Sometimes that ends up well, the timing just not being quite right to really dive headlong into a book at first. More often, its just a sign that a book isn't going to grab me at all. Unfortunately the latter was the case here. The world itself is a interesting creation. The four London's how they interact, various subsets of magic. I could have stood for quite a bit more, or more detailed, worldbuilding in fact. Maybe more about how the London's interact historically, more about the broader worlds than *just* the city, maybe more about the magic itself because I feel like we barely got information on two-ish types of magic, and even that tended to be pretty repetitive and brief. The characters themselves just weren't that interesting to me. Not their interpersonal conflicts, their internal conflicts, or the conflicts with the broader world/the plot. It also felt a surprisingly light and fast read for its length and the type of fantasy setting I assumed I was in for. It almost felt like I was watching a tv show or movie...the pacing, the surface level details of the world, the repetitive nature of a lot of the magic, the not exactly flat but fairly uninteresting characters. And maybe I was? It seems as though a pilot script for pitching at least was written by the author either around the same time as or withing less than a year of the book. Maybe that was the plan all along...make something that can be used to supplement a pitch and tie-in to sales if/when the movie or show gets made. I'm speculating...it could also just be someone who's strength *is* writing for the screen writing a novel instead? Anyway, I'll skip the rest of the series, and unless they end up free at some point, probably anything else by Schwab. But this could very well be to your, and is in many cases to someone else's, tastes.
I had about 3 false starts with this since a copy found its way onto my shelves. Sometimes that ends up well, the timing just not being quite right to really dive headlong into a book at first. More often, its just a sign that a book isn't going to grab me at all. Unfortunately the latter was the case here. The world itself is a interesting creation. The four London's how they interact, various subsets of magic. I could have stood for quite a bit more, or more detailed, worldbuilding in fact. Maybe more about how the London's interact historically, more about the broader worlds than *just* the city, maybe more about the magic itself because I feel like we barely got information on two-ish types of magic, and even that tended to be pretty repetitive and brief. The characters themselves just weren't that interesting to me. Not their interpersonal conflicts, their internal conflicts, or the conflicts with the broader world/the plot. It also felt a surprisingly light and fast read for its length and the type of fantasy setting I assumed I was in for. It almost felt like I was watching a tv show or movie...the pacing, the surface level details of the world, the repetitive nature of a lot of the magic, the not exactly flat but fairly uninteresting characters. And maybe I was? It seems as though a pilot script for pitching at least was written by the author either around the same time as or withing less than a year of the book. Maybe that was the plan all along...make something that can be used to supplement a pitch and tie-in to sales if/when the movie or show gets made. I'm speculating...it could also just be someone who's strength *is* writing for the screen writing a novel instead? Anyway, I'll skip the rest of the series, and unless they end up free at some point, probably anything else by Schwab. But this could very well be to your, and is in many cases to someone else's, tastes.