3.5 stars.

Well, I did it. I finally caved and read A Darker Shade of Magic. And it was… pretty good! I actually ended up reading the whole series - I couldn’t stop. 😂

Schwab’s books have always been a bit iffy for me - I can’t seem to get into a lot of them. But I was determined to approach these with an open mind. Overall, it’s a great story with a really unique plot. It kind of reminded me of Bardugo’s Six of Crows. Not necessarily in content, but it has a similar vibe/tone to it. It certainly has the same high level of world building and character development.

The only part that could have used some work was the pacing - it really dragged at times. The story line definitely could have used a bit of paring down to tighten it all up. There was some marginal improvement in the other books, but they still could have benefited from the extra editing.

But hey, at least now I know what the heck people are talking about when they say ‘As Travars’! Seriously though, I think I’ll give Schwab’s work another shot and maybe check out Vicious.