A review by olenvasynyt
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book is everything I have been looking for in a fantasy story.  I feel like the best way to describe this book was a really good dungeons and dragons campaign.  Not only is the writing fantastic, but the worldbuilding and the magic system are both comfortingly familiar and totally unique at the same time.  The magic involves traveling across worlds, spoken words and the bending of elements, and it’s done well because of the restrictions and the different amounts of magic for every person and every world.  It adds to the worldbuilding because the different worlds have different amounts of magic which leads to them interacting with and using magic differently and it’s just really well thought out.  
The characters!  There are not a whole lot of main characters in this book (I feel like with some fantasy books there can be way to many) so you’re really able to follow everything well.  As I said, this book gave me DND vibes and the main reason was the characters, especially Lila!  Pirate / rogue / ninja vibes from her.  She reminds me a lot of Celaena from TOG; I didn’t like Celaena in the beginning because she was kind of just a really brash, reckless and borderline rude girl, but as I learned more about her and saw how and why she fought I liked her a lot more.  I definitely think when I learn her backstory I’ll fall in love with Lila just as I did with Celaena.
It is usually very hard for me to like a villain in a lot of fantasy books because they’re never as dark as I want them to be or they’re written as dark but they just come across as cheesy.  But *oof*, I loved the villains in this book so much! Spoilers,
I will say the ending was a little lackluster to me mainly because I was upset with the twins dying because of how much I loved them as characters and villains.  But Holland is for sure still alive, I refuse to think otherwise, (I say that now but I’ll probably jinx it because I really liked him too lmao) and I know if the first villains are this good then the ones that are coming will be even better.
This was the first book and I think it was just a such a good way to set up a series because of how well the world was portrayed and how the main plot began.  It was simple because it was the pacing I think, but it was still exciting and you know the plot will just continue to unravel and mysteries will be solved.  I’m so excited to continue reading this series!
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