A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)

by V.E. Schwab

[Berls]

This was SO GOOD. It started slow, for sure - in fact, there was one point where I considered putting it down. I was interested by the world, but I didn't really get what the point was. What was the plot? Meeting Lila really kept me going, she steals this book IMO. I liked Kell, too. But without Lila, I'm not sure I would have gotten far enough to appreciate him. She's so spunky and tough and she makes me laugh and she has that soft hidden underbelly. I love her.

Anyway, it took a bit for me to see the plot. There was a decent bit of time spent building the world (worlds?) and setting the stage. But once the plot got going, it took off. Before I knew it, I was in the final few chapters. Slow start and then bam! It's non-stop. I'm thinking future books are likely to be much faster starts because there isn't a world to build anymore? I hope so, because I definitely plan to continue.

The audio was also really good for this book. The narrator, Steven Crossley, was new-to-me but did a great job. I sometimes struggle with male narrators doing female voices, but he did a good job with Lila, particularly when she's pretending to be a man. He manages to make her sound like a woman imitating a man... which, when you consider he's already a man doing a female voice, is considerably talented. So yeah, I will continue in audio and hope there's no narration changes in my future.