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A review by zanybibliophile
A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
3.0
A Gathering of Shadows is set four months after A Darker Shade of Magic. It begins with Rhy and Kell bored and not wanting to hurt one another (read book one to find out why) and Lila off being selfish and reckless. It is interesting that my opinion of Lila changed so dramatically from the first book where I liked her strength and fighting spirit. She still has those qualities, she just did not care about anyone else for 98% of this book. Speaking of changed opinions, I was disappointed in both Kell and Rhy too. They had become sulky and were not fun characters to read like they were in book one. It is understandable that the events of book one would leave people changed, but it was sad to see them broken by it.
Enough about my disappointment in the main characters, let's focus on the plot.
The book description made it sound like another action-packed story that I would not want to put down. That was not the case for me. I found it really slow, especially in comparison to A Darker Shade of Magic, and wondered if the book really needed to be that long. The Element Games mentioned in the description started on page 350 and even then it only had moments of the excitement book one had. In my opinion, this was a filler book - a book to explain how the events of book one lead to book three. In all honesty, I feel a few specific chapters from this book could have been included at the end of A Darker Shade of Magic which could have easily lead to what I hope will happen in A Conjuring of Light (book three) and the last 150 pages of A Gathering of Shadows when the Element Games occur could have been a short story listed as book 1.5 or something along those lines.
While there was a page here and there in the last 150 pages that made me think maybe the book was redeemable only to be let down by the following page, my favourite part of the book was actually the last seven pages. Those last seven pages are the reason I will read A Conjuring of Light and it is because they reminded me of A Darker Shade of Magic. It had that action-packed feel I was missing from the other 500 pages and it had me wishing that the next book was on my shelves so I could find out what happened next. If I had enjoyed the rest of the book anywhere near as much as I did those last pages, I would have happily given this a 5-star rating.
To be fair, the writing style and the worlds Schwab created were still amazing, I just was not keen on the story or the characters in this particular book in the series.
I was originally going to give it 2-stars because the book was a let down for me and I had to force myself to keep reading, but I did love the ending enough to raise that to 3-stars.
Enough about my disappointment in the main characters, let's focus on the plot.
The book description made it sound like another action-packed story that I would not want to put down. That was not the case for me. I found it really slow, especially in comparison to A Darker Shade of Magic, and wondered if the book really needed to be that long. The Element Games mentioned in the description started on page 350 and even then it only had moments of the excitement book one had. In my opinion, this was a filler book - a book to explain how the events of book one lead to book three. In all honesty, I feel a few specific chapters from this book could have been included at the end of A Darker Shade of Magic which could have easily lead to what I hope will happen in A Conjuring of Light (book three) and the last 150 pages of A Gathering of Shadows when the Element Games occur could have been a short story listed as book 1.5 or something along those lines.
While there was a page here and there in the last 150 pages that made me think maybe the book was redeemable only to be let down by the following page, my favourite part of the book was actually the last seven pages. Those last seven pages are the reason I will read A Conjuring of Light and it is because they reminded me of A Darker Shade of Magic. It had that action-packed feel I was missing from the other 500 pages and it had me wishing that the next book was on my shelves so I could find out what happened next. If I had enjoyed the rest of the book anywhere near as much as I did those last pages, I would have happily given this a 5-star rating.
To be fair, the writing style and the worlds Schwab created were still amazing, I just was not keen on the story or the characters in this particular book in the series.
I was originally going to give it 2-stars because the book was a let down for me and I had to force myself to keep reading, but I did love the ending enough to raise that to 3-stars.