I would say this book leaned towards the more trite and tropey side, and I absolutely devoured it. My 4 star rating comes from the opinion that a book should entertain, and I can assure you I was entertained.

You'll find my opinions tend to fall in the gray areas. Even when I rate a book highly, I'll find myself more in the middle than anything. There is no exception here, from the characters to the world building, I was left wanting more, feeling there SHOULD be more, while also feeling like this was merely a good start, a jumping point for future books to run with. I think the world Schwab has created is fascinating and, while I appreciate a book that doesn't just info-dump in the first book, I do wish we got a bit more than we did in regards to the history of the world. We got plenty for the monsters and the world as it currently is, but the way it got that way was glossed over, and I think the first book in a series is the best time to give that information to the reader. This book set up it's ending to feed into the FUTURE of the world, and I worry that any explanations and historical narrative we get in the next book will be inadequate and/or fed to us through the use of ill-timed flashbacks.

Kate and August were also very grey area to me. They seemed to be coming into their own by the end of the book, and therefore becoming more interesting characters who I can't wait to meet again in the next book. But against their credit, I had the same stock images for these characters as I did for the main girl and boy of the last YA book I read, which was Illuminae. Yes, I do partly attribute that to reading the books so close in a span of time to one another, but I find that shouldn't make it so difficult to conjure up a new image, especially since the world and plot of the two books are really not comparable. I hope to see these tw get better and better in the next book. And God willing, further development will NOT lead to a romance between the two of them. I was relieved to see there was barely even a hint of it here. Not really love, just slivers of affection between two people in a crapsack world as they fight side by side.

This book was the first by Victoria Schwab I've ever picked up, and I can't wait to pick up her other works. If the other reviews I've seen are any indication, A Darker Shade of Magic should prove to be even more impressive, even more fun, that this book(even reviews that raved about This Savage Song said Schwab's other works were just as if not more spectacular). I definitely look forward to seeing more from this world AND from Schwab as an author.