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

by V.E. Schwab

[girlinthepages]

So it seems as though it's SUPER UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME. I may be the only person to ever blog to not like this book. I seriously just checked Goodreads and the LOWEST rating anyone I know has given it is 4 stars. It took me almost the entire month of February to read this book, and the only thing keeping me from DNF'ing it was that I was convinced it was going to get better. How could it not, when so, so, so many people love it? I moaned all of February to Max about something being wrong with me for not being able to get into the book, lamented the fact that I wasn't engaged. He was probably as happy when I finished it as I was so that he finally had to stop hearing my whining.

First off, I want to clarify that I am in no way bashing this book. The writing was excellent, it was more of an issue with the plot never catching my attention. Fantasy is really hit or miss for me (I either LOVE it or am bored to tears by it) and this book clearly fell into the latter category. I thought Kell was an adorable muffin of a protagonist, but other than that I couldn't bring myself to truly become engaged with the other characters, which was a problem when they were in grave danger and I was supposed to be ~shocked and afraid~ for them. I also am not a fan of any story telling medium (tv show, movie, book, video game, etc) that has a plot that takes course only over the course of a day or two, so this story had that working against it in my mind. I think this book just had too much action for me and not enough character development (it felt like it was altercation after altercation and I wasn't really getting a sense of urgency/excitement since they were happening so often).

Though this is the first and only book I've read by Schwab, I do think she has great skill when it comes to writing villains. The only part of the book when I was generally intrigued and couldn't put it down is when Kell was "visiting" White London and had to interact with the Dane Twins and Holland (I have a feeling if I were to choose to keep on trying with this series that Holland would be my favorite). For some reason the Dane twins reminded me of a more sinister version of the Lannister twins from ASOIAF and White London was terrifying enough to hold my interest. Red and Grey London honestly just bored me.

Overall: I think my reading experience with this book is truly an instance of "It's me, not you." This book had too many elements that didn't jive with my personal reading tastes, but I can objectively see why so many people love it. A small part of me wants to push on to AGOS to see if a switch in my mind will flip and I'll see what all the fuss is about, but I'm also wary because when I force myself through a book I'm not enjoying it can land me in bit of a slump and I start to avoid reading altogether. I might try another series or book by Schwab in the future because I can tell she's a talented writer, but for now I'll have to except my fate as a major black sheep when it comes to this story.



 

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SaveThis review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages