A Darker Shade of Magic (series) - V E Schwab


A Conjuring of Light book review
My copy of A Conjuring of Light


Conclusion: It’s good, but...

I will try to break out reviews by book but for this one I’m going to review all three books as a whole.

First, V E Schwab is amazing. Her writing is amazing. The world she created is amazing. Her characters are complex and (mostly) lovable. She creates multiple languages for her world! And she packs so much in! The first book is such a fast read.

Plus, I love who Schwab is! Follow her on Twitter or Instagram, and you'll see that she’s a hard-working writer who isn't afraid to put quality above all else (seriously, she completely rewrote an anticipated sequel because she knew it could be better. How refreshing!). And she’s so open about her struggles with anxiety, self doubt and mental illness, which is so needed and honestly makes me feel like I already have an ally in the writing world. I hope I can be as awesome and encouraging as she is.

But here’s the deal with these books:

If you just read A Darker Shade of Magic, you’re good. It’s fun interesting, etc. You get all the perks!

If you read A Gathering of Shadows, know it’s a slow burn at first and then OH MY GOD SO MUCH STUFF HAPPENS! And Lila is more murder-y than normal, so...watch out for that. Also: cliffhanger warning, so you better have Book 3 nearby.

And if you read A Conjuring of Light, then... well, you might get your heart broken. Or at least feel dissatisfied. Because shit goes down in this book.

I have very conflicted feelings about A Conjuring of Light. Because I love so much of it. I was heavily (overly?) invested in one character and their arc just didn’t end all that well. I cried for days. I just reread it, hoping all that emotion was just because I was in a bout of depression, but nope, still upset for days. Liss wasn't as upset but was still dissatisfied.

One of the things that complicates this for me is Schwab's promise to a reader: “Just go in trusting that I believe in happy endings--you just have to go through hell to get there."

When I finished A Conjuring of Light, my thought was: that was a happy ending? Geez, what do your tragedies look like?

And it’s not that everyone dies at the end. It just feels unfinished. Like, you made them work for their happy ending. So it better be really god damn happy. And it just wasn't.

Part of this is Schwab's writing style: to quote Liss, everything is implied. It’s all a half spoken word. This is good and bad. Good in that the reader gets to work more and read more between the lines. Bad because at best this book feels rushed, at worst, you put it down feeling a little bit robbed. 

I'll add that it feels unfinished in different ways to different readers. Liss and I were bothered by the ending of completely different character arcs. And when I read another review, they were bothered by yet a third character arc. So there's just something missing here. You go through hell, and then you kinda get left there. 

- Alana

One more thought on the romance in this book: One of the romance arcs in this book struggles. It's weird because Schwab is amazing in so many other ways, but this one part falls flat. One scene in A Gathering of Shadows in particular feels like it was picked up out of a romance novel and dropped in. it's strange. And also plays on the same control/power dynamic that can make A Court of Thorns and Roses uncomfortable, only Schwab doesn't address it. In the Me Too era, where we are reevaluating how we view the power of one person over another as sexy, this particular scene just doesn't age well.

-Alana and Liss

Books It Reminds Us Of

It's got your Brooding Tortured Anti-Hero, and your Bad-Ass Girl with Knives like Six of Crows. Also it's got worldbuilding that's worthy of Tolkien. If that sounds like you, than this book might be up your alley.








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