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I almost read this entire book in one sitting. The only reason I didn't is because I was tired enough that my eyes were hurting. I read the first ~140 pages at once and finished the final ~30 the next day. It's a short book, and a quick read. And I absolutely ate it up.

It was an easy read, and the writing was a mixed bag. This book gives us amazing quotes such as "we notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women", yet it seems like every other page the lines "'oh,' she said" or "she said nothing at all" were used. I think there could have been some better writing in that sort of regard.

Regardless though, I loved this book, and the queer representation made me happy as an asexual. I can't wait to read Down Among the Sticks and Bones, and I expect I'll check out some more of Seanan McGuire's works as well.

Look my low review isn't going to be much different from everyone else's. No world building. Predictable. Dull characters. Confusing plot points. Magic system isn't fleshed out. You've heard it all.

But I'm not here to tell you the book is bad. It's a f/f romance fantasy book and I think it's spectacular that it exists. This book may be a low fantasy trying a biiiit too hard to be a high fantasy(and falling way waaaay short) with a kinda bland YA romance, but this sort of book is EXACTLY the type of simple read some people are looking for, and now they have their simple low fantasy with a healthy dose of representation and that. IS. WONDERFUL.

The plot wasn't for me, though. I tried, and I failed to get through it. I found it boring and tedious and at least 55% is because romance and low fantasy bore me in general. The book left much to be desired for a lot of reasons. But I'm glad it exists and people can find some joy in it.

Update 5/2020: rating upped to 4*

3.5 Stars

This book was a wonderful start to a series with a very interesting concept. The descriptions of the world is amazing, and reminded me a lot of The Giver in terms of the descriptions of the past. I went into the book expecting the Scythes to have a supernatural approach to taking life in a world where there is no death, but it's not like that at all, which perhaps made it even more interesting. I think this book is a great read and I can't wait to read the next book when it comes out.

So why the lower rating then? Because there were some things in this book that I think just didn't belong. Things that didn't mesh well with how the narrative was set up, how the pacing was organized, or how the author's writing style came through.

The first and most glaring issue I had was the shoehorned romance between the two main characters. No, the relationship between them never does blossom into a full blown romance, but the descriptions involved stated that the two characters had romantic feelings for each other that weren't properly developed. Ever. We don't see every moment these two spend together, just glimpses between time skips that span weeks and months. This sets up a great way to describe the life of Scythes and the regular citizens in this world but does not do well to establish a believable relationship between Citra and Rowan. The romantic/lustful thoughts we get to see from them comes off as the author thinking "oh, a boy and girl living together? They COULDN'T just be FRIENDS." Which is annoying at best and harmful at worst. It's fairly easy to ignore and plow through to the actual good parts of the book, but it's no less annoying and many eye rolls were had.

The other, much smaller, complaint I have is simply that any scenes involving combat weren't as eloquently written as they could have been, but perhaps it's just not Neal Shusterman's strongest point. That's fine, but it did make the scenes involving a lot of action or combat drag on just a tad.

That said, I did really enjoy reading this. I will be picking up the next book, and perhaps looking at Shusterman's other works as well.

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.

This genre isn't my usual go-to. I don't usually go for science fiction. What drew me in about this book was the format-- the style. I love a book with an unconventional way to tell the story. Chat logs, pictures, dossiers, prose. If it's anything but standard paragraphs, I am on it like a magnet.

So, I can say that I found the general reading experience enjoyable, despite my few gripes. I had the unfortunate experience of disliking the two main characters, Kady and Ezra. More specifically, I disliked the interactions between the two, and even more so, their "romance". Luckily, as they were mostly chat logs, thy were very easy to speed through to get back to what I feel is the real meat of the story, the reason I could ignore the teenage love story and keep going with vigor: A space war, a deadly virus, and AIDAN. Truly, the bulk of the story is about this. And while I wouldn't say "PHENOMENAL" in a caps-lock frenzy like many others, the story is gripping and the end left me wanting more. Left me feeling like the story is in it's infancy. And with the continuations in Gemina and Obsidio, that is all the more apparent. This is just the beginning for Illuminae, there's so much more that is so much bigger that this first book could hardly touch on, and I can't wait to take on the next book.

DNF at 59%

I started out liking the book. The descriptions of the agic and the circus seemed promising, and the jumping around in time wasn't that hard to follow. But as the story wore on, it seemed the more words I read, the less got described. There was no in depth descriptions of the magic beyond what we learn in the beginning. And at more than halfway through the story, neither the reader nor the main characters are at all aware of how this game they are playing is supposed to work, all because their abusive parent-figures won't tell them. And even the READER doesn't get to know why. No one is privy to any vital information except two very deeply unlikable characters who quickly become boring in their mysteriousness.

This book is billed as a romance, which is my least favorite genre, I only picked it up because no other source I read about it said it was a romance. I was willing to give it a chance though since I'd heard so much good about it. However, the characters that are supposed to be end-game spend about 55% of the book making absolutely no contact at all, ever. One of them does't even know who the other IS.

When Marco first meets Isobel, it's set up like she knows more about illusions and magic and such things, and that she's hiding something. I believe Marco notes that Isobel sounds like a fake name. In that moment, I thought for sure that Isobel was Celia in disguise and THAT would be the moment their ill-fated romance starts. That was not the case, however, and Isobel turns out to be nothing more than an amateur Tarot reader, who really serves very little purpose. Why have Marco enter into a relationship with a random girl when we know already she is not his opponent, and therefore not the one he's supposed to fall in love with? And then he just casts her aside with NO WORD TO HER after he hangs out with Celia for more than a minute one nigh, and decides he's in love with her. Even though they only see each other once every three or so years. Ok.

I wanted to like this book. The descriptions of the circus from the eyes of outsiders was fun, and I loved reading about the twins, but ultimately, this book offers very little. There's no substance to it, and it promises flair without delivering. I decided it was't worth my time to push through it.