A Darker Shade of Magic

Original de: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Si el año pasado hubiera podido hacer mi resumen de mejores lecturas, sin duda A Darker Shade of Magic habría estado en ella y en los lugares importantes.

Como soy muy olvidadiza, estuve armando listas y pequeños resúmenes de cada libro leído el año pasado y que no pude reseñar, para poder hacer la reseña más coherente. La cosa es que solo he puesto cuatro cosas en esa lista y todas ellas son fangirleo vergonzoso sobre este libro. En serio, la manera en la que el corazón me late y la sonrisa idiota nace NO ES NORMAL.

¿Qué tiene de especial? Te estarás preguntando. La respuesta es simple: TODO.

Para empezar la trama te deja completamente intrigado desde el inicio, me confundí un poquito show more al comenzar, no lo voy a negar, pero una vez que logras diferenciar los Londres, necesitaras leer más y más sobre cada uno. A pesar de estar en la sinopsis, durante unos capítulos tuve la idea que estos Londres eran ciudades vecinas, en realidad son mundos paralelos (!!!), explicados de una manera que... Schwab es una artista de la palabra. Haría lo que sea por tener su tipo de imaginación.

LILA BARD AKA MY BEAUTIFUL SINNAMON ROLL

Tanto Adelina como Lila podrían destruir el mundo y yo estaría ahí aplaudiéndoles, haciéndoles barra, en serio. Pienso en Lila y mi alma se regenera un poco, mi piel se limpia, tengo una pizca de fe en la humanidad...

Lila me recuerda mucho a los personajes de serie que adoraba de niña (Charmed, Xena, Rellic Hunter), ella es todo lo quiero en un personaje femenino, no es perfecta y eso es lo que me gusta más de ella, su brújula moral está un poco movida. Y, algunos podrían decir que es muy masculina. Yo siento que la parte femenina está cubierta por los hermanos Kell y Rhy.

PRINCE & PRINCE CINNAMON ROLL

Son. Demasiado. Adorables, a mi pobre bebe Rhy lo hicieron sufrir en este primer libro igual a pobre Kell, antari bebé.

Todos son mis bebes Y DEBEN SER PROTEGIDOS, estoy considerando seriamente adoptar dos niños para ponerle a una Lila Adelina Bard y al otro Kell Rhy o Rhy Kell, el problema es que me tendría que quedar con ellos.

A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC

V.E. Schwab simplemente trajo una obra maestra de la fantasía con este libro, quizá para ti este exagerando, pero siento todo este amor por el libro en el kokoro. No solo son los personajes principales, es la historia, la estética, es los personajes secundarios, es los villanos malditos, son los escenarios y los pasados de los personajes y la magia. Oh, la magia.

Y tengo que parar aquí, respirar y prepararme para A Gathering of Shadows

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Delilah Bard stole my heart.

While I am a fan of excellent heroines, very few capture me the way Lila did. The minute she swooped into this book, speaking of her swashbuckling dreams, I was entirely on board.

A Darker Shade of Magic isn’t about Lila, though. Not really. It’s about Kell and the Antari who travel through worlds, and a bit of corrupted Black London that has found its way into his unwitting hands. It’s about danger and sacrifice and courage and stubbornness and Lila is very much just along for the ride. And who came blame her? With London in four shades and the chance to travel between worlds (let alone countries…) I’d have hopped on board as well!

There are a few scattered things I want to note about A Darker Shade show more of Magic. The first, obviously, it the incredibleness that is Delilah Bard. She’s a shadow, a thief, a fighter, and a pirate. There are never enough pirates in fiction to satiate me. Beyond that, she is just plain interesting. Her dialogue? So good. It plays at my heartstrings. For example:

“I’m not going to die,” she said. “Not till I’ve seen it.”
“Seen what?”
Her smile widened. “Everything.”

My favorite line in the book. Possibly one of my favorite bookish quotes of all time, which is an honor held almost uniquely by novels by J.K. Rowling and John Green. Good company. I want to cut Delilah Bard out of the pages of this book and keep her with me. Glorious, wonderful character.

The second thing is the opening line. Although the first line of a book is supposed to be the hook that draws you in, I find that very few resonate with me enough that I can’t get them out of my head. “Kell wore a peculiar coat.” is one such line. It tell the reader so much and absolutely nothing at all. Who is Kell? Tell me about his coat. If his coat is peculiar, he must be too. H ow is he peculiar? How did he get this coat? … on and on it goes. Simple. Luring. Perfection.

Then there are the little casual bits thrown in all over the place – like Lila’s eye, and how did the stone really get to White London? Paying back Cella? Rhys and Lila’s future flirtations (this happens, right? Tell me it happens). I am so utterly enthralled in this novel that I am still wrapped in its pages and eager to learn more. The world building is astounding, the characters are delightful, the story is intriguing… as a reader, I really couldn’t ask for anything more. show less

Trigger warning for attempted rape

A Darker Shade of Magic has fantastic world building and prose, but for some reason it just didn’t do it for me. The most likely reason is that I never connected well to any of the characters.

Kell is one of two people who can travel between the Londons – flourishing Red London, full of magic; bitter and murderous White London; mundane Grey London; and Black London, lost long ago. When Kell accidentally cares a dangerous parcel between worlds, he runs into street thief Delilah Bard, and they must work together to stop a dangerous magic from overrunning all the remaining worlds.

The idea of A Darker Shade of Magic is fantastic, and the world building of the different Londons is very well done. A sense show more of magic permeates the book, even when the events take us to our own ordinary Grey London. Schawb’s prose style is delightfully vivid, and her settings unerringly come to life.

With all that it has going for it, I have a hard time pinpointing why I didn’t like this book more than I did. The most likely explanation is the characterization. I never became attached to any character in the novel. I think this is because we don’t see either of the leads having much in the way of relationships to other people. Kell does have relationships with people in his own world, primarily his brother Rhy, but it feels like we are mainly told about these relationships rather than actually see them. On the other hand, Lila doesn’t have much of a relationship with anyone, besides the growing connection with Kell. There’s a barkeep who helps her out sometimes, but the book doesn’t do much there.

Also, Lila had some weird internalized sexism that was never called out or refuted? There’s this section on page 66 where she is very scornful of other women, and that they deserve to be stolen from because they are pretending to be weak:

“It served them right, for playing weak. Maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to swoon at every top hat and take hold of every offered hand.”

The entire thing reeks of “Not Like The Other Girls,” where the female lead is made to seem special by distinguishing her from the other (inferior) members of her gender. The book does pass the Bechdel test, but only due to two scenes. In one Lila gets a disguise from a female merchant. In another she exchanges fight scene banter with the villainess. Neither is enough to dispel the pall cast by Lila’s noxious attitudes. Also, Lila’s second scene is a largely unnecessary attempted rape, which feels like cheap plotting more than anything else.

In the same vein, Rhy really seemed to be playing into stereotypes. He’s the only queer character in the whole novel and he’s a promiscuous bisexual? Gee, where have I seen that before. He’s got other personality traits (mostly informed rather than seen), but promiscuous bisexual seems to be a defining one. And the two are conflated as well, where it seems more like he’s bisexual because he’s promiscuous than that he’s a bisexual who also happens to be promiscuous.

I can see why other people really loved this book. As I mentioned before, the ideas and world building were very good. I mostly enjoyed A Darker Shade of Magic, although I’m not planning on reading the sequel. This probably isn’t going to be one I wholeheartedly recommend, but you may very well like it more than I did.

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page. show less

This book hooked me from the first line: “Kell wore a very peculiar coat. It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible.” The novel is an exciting blend of fantasy and sci fi, combining magical artifacts with parallel universes. The hero is a conflicted, magic-wielding prince, and the heroine is a scrappy thief and would-be pirate. In short, I loved it and have already purchased book 2, A Gathering of Shadows!

I approached this with some wariness, as I saw other readers had tagged it as YA and my experiences in that genre has led me to expect tiresome teenaged angst and even more tiresome love triangles, but this was a pleasant surprise. The only connection with that genre I saw was the age of the primary female character. What I found instead was a good adventure fantasy with a well-developed world and rules of magic. The characters were fun, the world was fun, and the action was suitably violent and gory, even if the Antari trait of self-healing did rob some of the danger of its impact. I would have liked to see more well-developed villains, though. They were fairly two-dimensionally evil, simple baddies to be knocked down. We did get a show more little more depth to the opposing Antari, at least, so there was some investment in that character. The book is obviously the start of the series, but there is a satisfactory (enough) resolution to the books to events to allow this one to serve as a stand-alone.

I read this for the 2018 Halloween Bingo square Darkest London: any mystery, suspense, horror or supernatural book set in London. This book is set in several Londons in adjacent worlds, with one (not visited) literally called “Black London”. show less

This review was originally posted on Lazy Day Literature

Kell is one of the last two Antari; people with magic in their blood that allows them to travel from one of the four London worlds to another. These worlds were shut off from one another because of a dark magic that destroyed the fourth London but being an Antari, Kell can magically circulate between them. But when Kell is given a dark artifact, he finds himself being chased between these realms.

I was sucked into this story from page one. We are introduced to Kell and his fabulous coat and I was continually amazed by everything about this book.

But. That. Coat.
I have to interrupt this review by stating that I have a bit of an obsession with coats. Sure, I live in a very hot state show more and have no need for them but I can't help but love them on characters. If a character is wearing a long, flowing coat - perhaps something a pirate or highwayman would wear - I will be in love. I call it "Coat Porn". It's a thing but get your mind out of the gutter, people! I just like looking at them!

Okay, back to the coat. It's multiple coats in one. That sounds ridiculous -and hot- but it's not; it's magic. A coat that fits different purposes in different worlds and can change simply by turning it inside out a few times. And Ta-da! I'm hooked.

If you want to go above and beyond in worldbuilding, make sure there's more than one world in your story. Four seems reasonable. And make sure that your characters can travel between them because why else would there be more than one. Seriously though, I loved how this world (or worlds) was set up. Every world is different, with different names for their countries, towns, and more, all the way down to the taverns. And yet, "London" is the same in all four worlds.
There's Grey London, which is basically our world, where there is no magic and everything is just kind of dull.
Then there's Kell's London, which he calls Red London because it's alive and thriving and full of magic that is practiced often. Plus it smells like flowers.
Next is White London, which is full of blood thirsty criminals and sick, sadistic twin rulers that like to torture people.
Lastly is Black London; the London that is basically dead because they abused magic, destroyed themselves, and then they were sealed off from the other worlds so the evil wouldn't spread.

Even if I knew nothing else about this book, I'd want to know what's going on in these four worlds. But then we have amazing characters!

Kell is quite a character even though we don't really learn a whole lot about him in this book. I couldn't help but fall in love with the idea of his character the same way I fell in love with that coat and the worldbuilding. It was inevitable because fantasy magic wraps me up like a warm blanket and I always root for the MC, no matter their flaws.

I really liked Kell but I honestly felt 'closer' to Lila. We get more of her inner workings. Who she is deep down. She felt more real and not just because she comes from a world that is closer to our own than any of the other Londons. She had dreams, aspirations, flaws, and a personality. I loved her. She's basically this story's anti-hero. She's reckless, stubborn, and kind of badass.

This was very plot driven and I loved every minute of it! I was never bored. I was always on the edge of my seat and waiting for the next surprise. Just about everything in this book is to the point and part of the bigger picture. That's something that really stuck with me while reading this because most books I read have a lot of pointless filler and dialogue that goes on and on. A Darker Shade of Magic was nearly perfect from beginning to end and I am so eager to start the next book! show less

This is an amazing book. Wow. Just wow.

The Writing and Worldbuilding

V.E. Schwab is the master of exposition that doesn't feel like exposition. She has somehow managed to introduce complex worlds and systems without talking at the reader. Her dialogue is just as seemingly effortless. The banter between Kell and Lila was so fantastic, and when she formally meets Rhy, all three of them are just so great together. The imagery was fantastic and vivid. The plot was consistently intriguing and exciting. I was never bored reading this. I even read some pages out loud to my brother in a fancy British narrator voice and it sounded so great! There weren't any awkward lines or anything.

The magic system was so amazing and unique, coupled with the show more historical setting, this felt like a classic adventure story. The back blurb by io9 is so true: it truly does "[feel] like a priceless object, brought from another, better world of fantasy books."

The Characters

Kell: He was a fantastic hero. He wasn't overpowered despite literally being one of the most powerful beings in the entire universe, and even managed to be relatable. Also, he's totally my bookish crush right now, like oh my goodness, he's so great, I love him. Can he just be real and also my boyfriend?

Lila: She is the strong female protagonist the world needed. She manages to be a formidable fighter even when compared to the likes of Kell and Astrid Dane (while still being realistically underpowered given the fact that she couldn't use magic like them). She is witty and smart.

Holland: Dang this guy was scary. I kept reading his voice and seeing him as Mads Mikkelsen in my head, so I think that gives a good idea as to what kind of a villain he was.



Rhy: While he didn't feature much, he was consistent and very real when he did. I loved his sense of humor.

Astrid and Athos Dane: These guys were so scary oh my gosh. They were like two evil Viking demons in stark white. They were so sadistic and psychotic.

Conclusion

This is a new favorite, for sure. I felt like I'd been waiting for this book without knowing. I never knew there was an A Darker Shade of Magic shaped hole in my heart until I started reading it. I am intrigued to know what happens in the next two books, especially since seemingly all threats were resolved by the end. Either way, I love this book and I'm so glad I did this Buddy Read with my GR friends Saite and AnnaNeverLands show less