Kell is one of the last Antari―magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black. 

Kell was raised in Arnes―Red London―and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.

I’ve seen a lot of people talking on Twitter about how much their reading or TV watching habits have changed since *gestures vaguely* all this started. And mine have, too. For sure. I have a massive list of shows & movies I want to watch, but I’ll find myself watching something totally random that wasn’t on the list to begin with. I don’t know what that’s all about, but I’m not fighting it.

On the reading side of things, I’ve actually probably been reading a bit more than usual, but have also fallen into a pretty new-to-me habit of reading multiple books (I’m currently reading five, which is just fucking weird & I can’t really explain it).

What I’ve been super struggling with is writing reviews, and this one in particular has been difficult to even think of beginning. Mostly because…I just don’t have a lot to say about V. E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic.

Yeah…oof. I’ve had this book on my shelf for quite a few years & was really excited about finally reading it. And it’s obviously very well written & super imaginative. The whole concept of the book is just incredible, but the experience of reading this was, for me, not very memorable.

There’s a million reviews for this book, so I’m honestly not sure what else I can add to the mix in terms of plot/a recap.

I think what’s left me feeling so deflated about this one is that I just couldn’t bring myself to care very much about the two main characters, Kell & Delilah Bard. On paper (no pun intended), Lila Bard should be a new favorite character of mine. But when all was said and done, I felt like I knew nothing about this woman other than she’s a badass sorta-pirate who likes knives and hats. I just didn’t connect with her, or Kell…at all, really.

It’s taken me a month (or maybe just a few days) to write this review, and I hate it. But I guess ultimately, this is a great reminder that not every book is for every reader. I went into A Darker Shade of Magic with a lot of enthusiasm & was totally prepared to order books two & three before I had even finished reading book one. And there was a moment, somewhere around page 130-150 where I could feel myself getting way more into this book, and then…I don’t know, it just kinda fizzled out. This wasn’t a struggle to get through, and I wasn’t rage-reading it just to finish. It was just a book that, once I had finished reading it, I was done thinking about it.