mitabird
Written on May 26, 2020
Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city, a grisly metropolis where the violence has begun to create real and deadly monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the inhabitants pay for his protection. August just wants to be human, as good-hearted as his own father-but his curse is to be what the humans fear. The thin truce that keeps the Harker and Flynn families at peace is crumbling, and an assassination attempt forces Kate and August into a tenuous alliance. But how long will they survive in a city where no one is safe and monsters are real...
- ISBN10 0062380877
- ISBN13 9780062380876
- Publish Date 5 July 2016 (first published 7 June 2016)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Imprint Collins
- Format eBook
- Pages 480
- Language English
Reviews
Brittany
Written on May 24, 2020
I did like it, but it felt a little weird to me. The whole book kind of felt like the beginning of a book. Even through the “exciting” parts I was waiting for something more. I feel like the next book will be spectacular, but also that after I read it I will feel like the 2 books should have just been combined into one to make a better story. I feel like this was missing something and though that something will most likely appear in book 2 it made this book fall a little flat to me.
alindstadtcorbeax
Written on May 5, 2020
RTC - onto Our Dark Duet!
kalventure
Written on Aug 4, 2019
Victoria is such an amazing writer. She has an amazing imagination and crafts fantastic worlds, but her writing style just isn't for me and I think it is time to accept it.
Full RTC on my blog, but here are my initial thoughts:
- Heavy on telling instead of showing
- Slightly repetitive narrative
- dual POVs but the voices aren't distinct at all
- uneven pacing; I struggled and was bored until about halfway into the book (which is common for me with Schwab's books)
- once the action started, I was here for it
- some twists that I didn't see coming
- I didn't really care about Kate until the end of the book. oops?
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liz089
Written on Nov 14, 2018
bookperson
Written on Jul 30, 2018
justine_manzano
Written on Jul 1, 2018
Book Summary: Below is the jacket copy for the first book of the duology, This Savage Song. I will not include a summary for Our Dark Duet, because that would be spoilery as all get out.
#
Kate Harker wants to be as ruthless as her father. After five years and six boarding schools, she’s finally going home to prove that she can be.
August Flynn wants to be human. But he isn’t. He’s a monster, one that can steal souls with a song. He’s one of the three most powerful monsters in a city overrun with them. His own father’s secret weapon.
Their city is divided.
Their city is crumbling.
Kate and August are the only two who see both sides, the only two who could do something.
But how do you decide to be a hero or a villain when it’s hard to tell which is which?
Corsai, Corsai, tooth and claw,
Shadow and bone will eat you raw.
Malchai, Malchai, sharp and sly,
Smile and bite and drink you dry.
Sunai, Sunai, eyes like coal,
Sing you a song and steal your soul.
Monsters, monsters, big and small,
They’re gonna come and eat you all.
What I enjoyed: I have to really stop and think about this, because on a knee jerk, I want to think I enjoyed everything, but I want to be more specific. This was definitely a novel that swept me up and through me through the dryer in the best possible way, so I’m still a little dizzy over it. Okay, deep breaths.
For starters, the characters--generally my favorite part of the book, I loved these characters. Kate was difficult to love, and at first you kind of loved to hate her, but by the end of her arc, I was blown away by her. She was a complex and truly wonderful character. August was a character I loved from the beginning, but his journey was a gripping ride, as he came to terms with who he was, what his role could be and what it should be. The villains ran the gamut between disturbing (the monsters) and oddly understandable and still disturbing (the human villains).
The mythology of this world was surprising and inventive. The monsters here are born of violent acts, meaning each act of brutal violence creates a monster. Dealing with your own demons is a big theme in this book. I was intrigued by the breakdown of differences between the monsters, and the creation of the war-divided city of Verity. I applauded her use of music as a way to draw forth a soul for devouring in the Sunai. This was a completely unique monster concept to me, and I loved the way this played out, especially in the end. The writing in itself is downright poetic. Like the music from August’s violin, it drags you in and holds you in its comforting lull or pulls you into pieces, depending on the moment.
The tone of the story was another lovely point. It was gritty and real and lived in. No punches pulled.
What I’d avoid:
There were a couple of things I didn’t love about the story, although they definitely weren’t as prevalent as the things I did. Schwab delivered a new and inventive world, and I understood that she wanted to leave some room for speculation, but there were a couple of threads I felt were left hanging. Things like “what happened to the US to create a city like Verity?” or “What happened to certain characters Kate and August weren’t able to maintain contact with?” just kind of never get answered, even though they felt like they would be. They aren’t integral to the plot, but it nagged me a little bit. Bigger questions, like “why are the Sunai SO DIFFERENT from other monsters, and from each other?” could have been purposely left open as something for the reader to suss out and theorize about, but I felt a few more clues would have been very much appreciated.
Would I recommend it:
I actually just did. I hope my husband is enjoying his audiobook of it right now! And I will continue to. I really enjoyed this story.
What can I learn from it:
I’ve been struggling with the bittersweet ending of one of my novels, wondering if I’d gone the right way with it. The Monsters of Verity series, along with its popularity, made me feel much better about this choice in my work. It also helped me trudge forward without fear in my latest work, which does have a gritty backdrop and a slightly selfish heroine. This story is a class in “Write what the story wants, the rest will fall in place” and I love that.
Despite my few tiny gripes, this series had me from the very first line and held me. And, it helpfully works as an addition to my list of comp titles. One of my favorite things about looking for comp titles is discovering new authors and new stories. Have any of you ready This Savage Song and Our Dark Duet? Any recommendations of similar books?
Jennifer | Pushing Pages
Written on Apr 2, 2018
Setting:
I liked the setting of Verity/V City. I pictured a very clustered, tight metropolis. We saw way more of North than we did South. Most of South we just saw the Flynn compound and a little around it. However, I do hope we get to explore even more of this universe as it's set in a real-world environment that has been transformed into these city/settlement factions for safety. I'm hoping I see something different with Prosperity.
Characters:
I liked each character in this book in their own way; even the antagonists. Schwab was incredibly consistent with her characters. I had multiple theories about what was going on with Sloan/Callum throughout the third and fourth verses (parts), and it was refreshing to have something different thrown at me. (Spoiler, I guess: All of the antagonists, and borderline-antagonists were working together all along!!!! Dun dun dun...)
The imagery associated with these characters was particularly poignant to me, moreso when it came to the Sunai, who for obvious reasons we see more of in this story.
- Leo: A self-assigned judge and jury to the world, holier-than-thou, and his markings leading down to his fall into darkness were crosses.
- Ilsa: A wonderful person/monster who was always concerned more about the vastness of the world and the ones around her, never herself, marked by stars.
- August: A young boy/monster who dreaded each new day as it came, mentally clawing at this feeling of being incomplete. His tallies were akin to a prisoner carving the days that pass on their cell wall, consumed by their own imprisonment.
Through the three Sunai, Schwab did a great job of making Leo the strong-arm, stoic kind, while August was the unsure and suffering kind. And in between was Ilsa, with a warmth to her that you felt every time she was on a page. Ilsa was, obviously, my favorite. And she played her role well.
- Also, Ms Schwab how dare you make me think she was dead???? That was so much. When she ended up being okay in the end, I legitimately had an emotive response I didn't even expect. OH, and I really liked August's monster design.
Kate was extra. How else can I put it? But I really enjoyed her - desperate to be taken in and accepted by her father. Desperate to keep people at arm's length so she can achieve her goals and give her reputation the backbone it needs to prove herself to her father. It was very interesting. Plus the whole I'm-gonna-burn-a-chapel-down-just-to-get-my-way bit was such a ride for the opening of this book! Not to mention when she's in the subway cart bleeding out, August is trying to help her, and - while dying - calls him a shitty monster. What a fun time!
Sloan was an antagonist that I was constantly intrigued by. I knew he wasn't going to be redeemable, but I also didn't care. (Because I'm not constantly trying to redeem every character.) But he had a snark and darkness about him that made him fun to watch throughout the book.
I liked that we only saw Callum in parts, because it really did represent just how distant and disconnected from Kate he truly was. He was a figurehead throughout the book and then he was behind it all - trying to open up the Seam and city to war. I also loved Leo's role in that; August did a great job of dropping hints about how he has lost his inner-human-like qualities over time. It made sense that in the world he saw - being a man in uniform, seeing its worst, but also being one of the monsters - that he would find more satiation from relishing in his own power and bringing it down upon others.
I also appreciated that there were notable hotties~ in this book, but this book wasn't full of ridiculously stunning people just for stunning's sake. This book was led by two main characters with no discernible features that would make them beautiful in that classic YA way. I mean, should this ever become a movie, I'm almost positive that will change. Because movies love to do that. But Kate was very plan with a very noticeable scar, and was never really described as anything standout in any of her descriptions. August was lanky, malnourished, stringy/curly hair... Nothing that immediately makes you think handsome, though I'm sure he's growing into himself, too.
Relationships:
Briefly, I just want to say, that I appreciated that we didn't just jump directly into a romance with August and Kate. I don't know that I would have hated to see that, but it was nice to know that there was more emphasis this round on their desperation for connection.
- Kate was enthralled August never recoiled because no one in her life would ever give her the slightest bit of contact.
- August used to be a unintentional prisoner of the Flynn compound, so he was just nice someone could relate to him on the outside world.
I have a feeling, because it felt sorta hinted at, that it might turn towards relationship in the sequel, if we see them together again, but it's nice to know their foundation wasn't just that.
I'm just so over the "we met a week ago, but I love you" YA/movie romance schtick. It's gotten very old.
Wavy Hand Things:
This isn't a dislike, but I do wish we knew exactly what was going on with the Phenomenon. It's referenced a lot, but never explained. What I gleamed from it was that I guess monsters hadn't always been a product of this world. But I would hope we would know more about it before the end of the first book. Perhaps that's the point of the sequel, though? We shall see.
The repetition really worked in Schwab's favor as it pertained to Kate and August playing the where are you game, August constantly falling/trying to bring himself back up. There were some moments before Kate introduced the aforementioned game to August, where I was growing a little tired of the repetition. But once we got to that point, it really started to fit into the prose a little better for me.
Overall, this was very fun to read, and I'm excited to read the sequel.
bookswithjelena
Written on Dec 29, 2017
Only because first half of the book was slow, but then the second half picked up and I couldn't put the book down.
leahrosereads
Written on Sep 15, 2017