An atmospheric, spooky read. But largely, the main character is told not to do something... and then immediately does it! If the boy had half a bit of common sense, the book would have no plot :/.

Also, this book felt kind of dated with what it had to say about gender roles.

Remember how Goblet of Fire was about a tournament of magic-wielding teenagers, but there was all kinds of political intrigue going on in the background, making the players of the game players in a bigger game?
...
Remember how Catching Fire was a tournament of teens caught in a reality TV show survivor game, but there was a bigger political game at stake?
...
And Godsgrave had a tournament of teen gladiators fighting for sport, but there was a bigger political game at play?!?!
...
There is no bigger game at play in A Gathering of Shadows -_-. It's 360 pages of setup followed by another 140 pages of ACTUAL SPORTS COMMENTARY, followed by a 4 page cliffhanger, all interspersed with a lot of teen angst in lieu of actual character or plot development. I feel cheated. There was so much potential here. But the word count was wasted more on the setup than the story. Most of the characters are pretty insufferable this go-around, and a central "conflict" doesn't really assert itself until the cliffhanger, with everything that comes before being mostly self-inflicted melodrama.
The first book set the bar so high: A non-magical person gains magic and traverses worlds, parallel monarchs attempt to assassinate one another, and raw, wild magic gets loose and runs rampant... And this sequel... fell so low: Some teens avoid each other, then complain about how difficult love is, all while playing magic-tag.
It is very hard to believe that these books are from the same series :(.


EDIT Review 2:

Having finished the orig trig, and reread this book, I have a little more patience for it. Yes, it is a slow burn, and a lot of setup or foreshadowing. But there are some epic echoes in the finale that make these intermediary dance steps worth it. Plus, all of the characters - especially Lila, Kell and Rhy - needed to go through these growing pains at a natural pace, there was no getting around it for them to grow into who they become. This book has A LOT to say about personal balance, dualities of self, and imposter syndrome, that I didn't give it enough credit for in my first readthrough. Restraint vs impulsiveness, career duties vs self-care, fostering relationships vs claiming independence, imposing order vs having faith - everyone is trying to forge their identities between a set of maxims. It's the same pain as pushing through one reality to get to another, and yet the same natural order as opening an internal doorway and allowing yourself to step forward. Sorry for being saccharine, but it's a painful magic, growing up, learning to balance, owning one's identity. I know that these themes are very near and dear to the author, and it shows on the page. The characters are still very authentic.
... eeeeven if the YA tournament thing has been done to death XD.
One star returned, for V.E. Schwab being brave enough to channel into this book her own meditations on striking balance, and allowing yourself to take up space. We each deserve to feel like the victor in our personal arena.

This book gets a HUGE score for representation, let's get that right out of the gate! Very few fantasy stories out there are inspired by Central America and the pre-colonial Americas, or if they are they rely on something hokey like "Ancient Mayan Ruins" or "Mayan Prophecy"... A lot of leaning on the Mayans, when there are SO many other cultures to explore! And the discussion of queer relationships and identity goes hand in hand with cultures that don't have stigmas about more than two genders.

It was a dense read at first, keeping all of the religions, ruling clans, towns and peoples straight. But that's par for the course with a big fantasy story, and once I was deep enough in I didn't have to flick to the glossary or map for reminders anymore. But one thing that held me back from /getting/ far enough into the book to be comfortable was pronunciation. Me and my dumb, ignorant, sheltered, stupid, cis, white girl brain didn't know what to do with double "aa"s or "xir". I admit my own failing here, not the book's; I clearly need to better educate myself. But it was a learning curve for me, being able to "say" the words on the page in my imagination, and my stuttering inability to do so made it hard for me to sink into the book.

There were some moments when the topics the book wanted to discuss were forced. Like, a trans character shows up, and offers her history... even though she's a supremely minor character and is never seen again after that one scene. Or a boy who was abused and sold to sex-traffickers is introduced, and in his first scene he offers up his twenty-year-spanning sob story, even though the topic should /definitely/ be too painful to lead with. I don't feel like people offer their past, their pain, their truths, to strangers (or near strangers) so easily. I think the author wanted to talk about these topics, and just used the characters as mouth pieces, instead of being genuine with their characterization. It was preachy moments like these which pushed me out of the book further. Yes, I want to have a mature conversation too! But not at the expense of the storytelling.

And by the end of the book that was sort of my general takeaway, and why I knocked a star off: Yes, cool, necessary fantasy world, cool and necessary conversations... But do I care about these characters? Do I like them? Do they have enough facets? Do I care about this plot? I know this is book 1 of a trilogy, and judging a series by its first book is a big mistake (see my undying love for the Grishaverse), but I'm not sure that I'm invested in the /story/ so much as I am the world and the message. Time will tell if I change my tune. But the sequels need some character arcs, some twists and turns... Some spice. Something. I don't /feel/ for these people, yet.

I waffled for ages as to how I was going to score this book.

The writing is a 5, let's get that right. The melancholy prose unfolds like one of her fireside confessions, or like a crooked stream twisting and glinting in the dark... It draws you in, beautiful even though it is also tragic, sinister, and full of very bitter human longing.

For message, the book only hit a 4 for me. Circe has an eons' long journey of self-discovery... but at every turn she seeks a man's validation, and eschews the friendships of women. Granted, she wasn't offered many, but she is often more trusting and affectionate towards men than women, /despite/ the repeated abuses heaped upon her by the men in her life. Furthermore, she is comfortable keeping her own company... for a time. But always, loneliness seeps in, and she convinces herself that not only would she feel better if she /had/ company, but she would feel better if she were /like/ the company she keeps, if she conformed herself to suit someone else, and hid what was strong or remarkable about herself. A human trait, a reality for many people. But a lesson I would have liked to see a mythical character learn and overcome. I think we are supposed to feel that way by the end. But since she still pines for marriage, a husband to soothe her... I'm not convinced she ever learns to be happy with herself.

And finally, for as much as I appreciate the finesse in the writing, and appreciate the discussion of women's rights and the many, MANY unsung hardships of trying to thrive as a woman... the book is HEAVY, emotionally heavy. I didn't /enjoy/ reading it; the many passages about self-harm and suicide made me anxious, her callousness about how she tricked a married man into impregnating her made me angry, her overall lack of trajectory or hope made me sad... This is not a happy book XD. It's a good book for dissecting, like with a book club or an English class. But it's not fun for reading alone before bed. Not for me, too real. I give it a 3 for personal enjoyment.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to score this book. It's terrifying, in that it's way too close to plausible, given everything that's happened in the USA these last few years. I wonder if it was considered a more sci-fi read back when it was first published. The book is atmospheric, philosophical... it offers a conversation, but no answers. And with real politics of the day hemorrhaging what was fantastical about the novel decades before... now I'm unsettled to not have answers, to not have a clear heroine who saves the day and triumphs over overwhelming odds. There is less to debate any more, less enjoyment in the safety of fiction. A similar regime is real for some reader, somewhere, and I don't just want to hear the problem, I want to work towards the solution. I can see why the show took the story MUCH further, and focused on the Mayday resistance.
While it may have come up short in the adventurous plot department, it certainly excelled in the writing style. This anonymous woman is confessing, unraveling, romanticizing, daydreaming - all in an effort to remain human - and her associative storytelling, swirling past and present, really clicked. This book felt over too soon, I was that invested. I'm glad I have Testaments to look forward to.

Wouldn't you know it, aside from Hound of the Baskervilles (the least Sherlockian Sherlock Holmes story), I had never read any Sherlock Holmes. My knowledge came from pop culture reincarnations. So, I finally sat down to read the real deal... And I was NOT disappointed

I think this book and A Gathering of Shadows had pacing issues which interfered with the enjoyment of this inconclusive conclusion. A lot of backstory, perspective shifts necessary for sympathizing with a character, or information on the wider world (magical do-hickeys, pirate markets, international tensions, etc.), were revealed in this book, when they should have been dropped in the previous one. "Gathering" all this information /ahead/ of the climax would have made me feel like the final book was building towards a boss fight, but instead I feel as though the final book changes the margins of the world willy-nilly every chapter. A new magical item, or superpower, or martyr, is introduced so frequently, they don't feel earned; instead they feel more like deus ex machinas the author needed to pull out of nowhere because she didn't have a plan as to how to resolve the conflict otherwise.

And the central conflict remains rather vague. Is Osaron building a zombie army, and our heroes need to wake the dormant, tortured minds of thousands? Is Osaron building a copycat kingdom, and they need to understand the psychology of this villain, why he builds things, why he burns through things, what he feels he's /missing/ and has been trying to attain in the wrong ways? Is Osaron jealous of the living, and desires - King Louie style - to be like them, and therefore seeks the perfect human vessel which can contain his might? Is Osaron simply delighting in pure chaos, and rewriting the rules of reality on a whim, and our heroes have to be creative spellcasters to maneuver faster than his imagination? We don't know. The characters don't know. And the characters throw everything and the kitchen sink at Osaron, hoping to be right one time. The fetch quest, the luck of finding EVEN MORE items of power in the pirate's market, and the various sacrifices, all seemed overly convenient and woefully under-informed. Rarely, in this book, does anybody study Osaron, then come up with a plan to turn his own powers or arrogance against him, and even the ones that do, their resistance isn't effective for long. A series of cool-looking, cinematic, moments, at the end of which I reflected and thought, "Well, that was senseless, why even do that in the first place?" Very Marvel.

This is all very hard to explain without spoilers X_X;.

Aside from pacing and plot coupons, my only remaining gripe with this series is Alucard. I find him toxic and insufferable. The fact that he gets the happiest happy ending in this book, left me feeling ill. Despite his losses/suffering, he never grows as a character, never has a moment of humility, or a desire to work as a team. Meanwhile, Holland - the vessel for most of the conflicts in the entire trilogy - loses, suffers, /and grows/, earning more sympathy for the White London Antari Assassin than for King Rhy's alleged OTP. I think the whoooole series would have been fine without, or with less, Alucard; his plot arc is selfish and adds nothing to the other characters he travels with, and nothing to the defeat of Osaron.

OH, I lied, I have one more complaint: Why was Ned side-lined?! What was the point of introducing magic into Grey London, if not to call on it in our heroes' hour of need? I was expecting a magi-steampunk army to have grown up while The Reds were away defending their own London. I was expecting Red to have to evacuate, and Grey was their only hope, a ragtag band of misfits green to magic... as Lila had been when /she/ left. Lila, now Captain Bard, captain of an AIRSHIP, her fire powers used to buoy a balloon into battle! BWAHAHA! I had big dreams. High hopes... And then... Pfft. Grey London was just... /our/ London. A little Easter egg. Magic exists in tiny ways, if you know where to look for it, but no, the rest is myth... I didn't appreciate Grey being reduced to a fairytale, a wink to the reader, instead of an active participant in the plot.

All of that said, there were some GREAT moments in this book. The way the final battle mirrors the Essen Tasch. Kell x Lila on a boat <3 <3 <3. The way Kell, Holland, and Lila learn to sympathize with one another... I wish it were more than moments that I loved about this book :/.

EDIT: Reread, Review 2 -

If I hadn't lived through the pandemic, and watched people fight over how to handle a plague in real time, I might have left this book at 3 stars. But now that I've witnessed people hastily throwing out theories, untested remedies, blame - even trying to capitalize on the situation - I now understand how realistic this book was. It's not that they make a plan but then don't stick to it out of idiocy, OR that they get handed lucky doodads that the author pulled out of nowhere. It's that the world (and the history of the world) is vast, way bigger than just London, and the author (being omniscient) knew there was a vaccine out there all along, but there were too many kings calling shots without that knowledge, and they hurt each other in their blind attempts to control a chaotic situation.

I still feel like there is too much going on in this book, like there were enough PoV switches and flashbacks to easily give Alucard, or Maxim and Emira, their own books. The only backstories that felt earned and necessary were Rhy's and Holland's. I wish they had been sprinkled in a lot sooner. I kept imagining how different the trilogy would have been if, say, adapted for Netflix, and those flashbacks were included throughout.
But something I didn't appreciate the first readthrough, that I do now, is how the PoV switches mirror pure magic. Whether you picture the tapestry of threads that braid into each other, or the morphing of one element into another, people's lives aren't one, straightforward plot; they are an evolving, branching, intertwining, living story.
Similarly, I shouldn't have taken a star away for Osaron not having a straightforward manifesto. He's a creature of pure, chaotic, unbalanced magic. Of course he doesn't have a PLAN. He is always evolving his understanding of the living, and what his purpose in relation to them ought to be. Give them wonders? Subjugate them? Spread to all worlds? Stay safe in one body? He doesn't know, he doesn't need to know; NONE of us know! We rational creatures are all in flux, that is the magic in all things.

I give this book a star back, for taking aaaaaall the fairytale tropes, and instead of delivering an easy Happily Ever After, giving us a difficult and cathartic lesson about how there are no ends. We are always - often unknowingly - pushing and pulling on each other's threads, changing the tapestry, changing the flow of where the story goes.

I wasn't expecting the perspective to shift to two new characters in this sequel, but I'm all for it. My heart was still in my throat the entire read through. I fell as deeply in love with these new heroes as I had with Kady, Ezra and AIDAN. It was also cool to see what was happening elsewhere in the 'verse during the finale of Illuminae, and then see how these two stories braid together.

I hear what the critics are saying, though. The psychotropic drug-spewing aliens are RATHER similar to the virus in the first book. And despite their major creep factor, they were kind of pointless in the end; our heroes end up with bigger concerns. Speaking of... there is always a danger, with timey-wimey stories, that any emotional beats hit will be undone by a big Redo button. Am I happy with how the book ended? Extremely! Do I think it's kind of a cheap trick which was already played in the first book? Yes, yes I do XD. AND speaking of speaking of: The stylization packed a cinematic AND emotional punch in the first book, when I felt like I was spiraling with fighter pilots, or hopping through space like an astronaut. But this second installment tried the same trick to try and simulate going through a wormhole and experiencing parallel realities... It was a little less successful. Jumping I get, I can jump. Dodging and spiraling, I can imagine that. Reality stretching infinitely and then winding back on itself into a point until my brain melts? Harder to /feel/ that, I don't have the frame of reference for that. The stylized text didn't help much, this go around.

But despite those few gripes, I was still HEAVILY invested in the story, I wouldn't knock a star off. It's a sequel, there are bound to be some things which feel repetitive... because it's the same series, the same universe, we never /finished/ the story. Can't accuse something of plagiarizing itself when it's all one document, you know? It's an adrenaline-filled sci-fi horror show! What's not to love?!!!

The perfect ending to this trilogy!!! What I loved most was that this installment wasn't hokey sci-fi. It was very grounded in its war/refugee story, raw and human. The conflicts weren't always about the sides, no one combatant/survivor was entirely right or wrong. Instead, the conflicts were starvation/dwindling supplies, the environment, fear robbing people of their common sense/training in a crisis, indoctrination robbing people of their empathy in a crisis - surviving the systems they live in without compromising life or integrity, those are the conflicts. Gut and heart-wrenching! Absolutely stunning series, start to finish.