literatureaesthetic's Reviews (540)

Kell is an Antari, this means he has the ability to travel between each of the London's - Red London where Kell was raised, Grey London, White London and, once upon a time, Black London. Being an Antari is rare, in fact Kell is one of two Antari that exist in the whole world. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, which is illegal. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand. After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a thief who yearns for adventure.

I really enjoyed this! This trilogy has a lot of hype surrounding it, and that always makes me cautious when picking up a new series. Usually because I enter the series with unrealistic expectations that aren't fulfilled. This wasn't the case with A Darker Shade of Magic. From the start, this book had me entranced. I absolutely adore the characters, Kell and Rhy have an amazing bond, I love them both. Lila is hilarious and is the perfect strong female which I also love. I even loved Holland as a villain, I feel like he has many layers, I'm slightly upset for what happened to him

3.5 Stars

The beginning of this book was so slow paced. To the point where I was about to DNF. Nothing was happening, and it was around the 200 page mark where the pace began to pick up and things finally began to happen. Obviously, this is the second book in a trilogy, and the second book is often a "filler" book where characters and the plot is being set up for an epic conclusion in book 3. So in that light, the slow pace is understandable. I still wish it didn't take so long for things to get where they were by the end.

Rating: 2.5 Stars

One word: disappointing

Oh my lord. This book was amazing! The characters were as vicious as ever, there were so many plot twists and betrayals that I actually screamed at parts

the fact that I didn't give this 5 stars is killing me.

I love Brandon Sanderson's work, he's definitely my favourite author. But this story felt kinda basic? I don't know, I just wanted more.

I think the whole "are the bad people really the bad people?" concept was quite interesting. But it is something we've already seen before with Sanderson. It felt like Sanderson had recycled elements from all of his other books, and put it in graphic novel format? Idk.

The art was very good though, and I will continue but yeah, kinda meh for me

Overall, this book was great! Definitely want to pick up the next one.

I loved the writing style so much, but I didn't really connect with the characters. I guess that's to do with the length, but also because of the structure of the book (it's a story within a story). I am intrigued by the world, I kinda wish this was longer. I feel like this would've been an amazing full length novel.