A Darker Shades of Magic trilogy by V.E. Schwab book review

There are just some things that I have to do in order to feel like my life is meaningful. One of them is going to book events. So when I heard that V.E. Schwab was going to be coming to my area in about a week, I had to rush to read the Darker Shades of Magic series. And boy, am I glad that I marathoned this series.

The series follows this young man named Kell, an Antari who can travel through different worlds. They are basically parallel worlds of the same thing. There is Gray London, where there is no magic. A lot like our London, except back in Victorian era. Then there is Red London, where magic thrives and the Thames is blood red. Then there is White London, where magic is corrupt and evil. But not as evil as Black London, where everything is black and it’s forbidden to go there. Red London is the home of Kell and the center of a lot of the strife. After Black London became corrupt and corrosive, Red London decided to close the doors to each London, damning White London and Gray London to its fate.

Then there is a girl named Delilah Bard who will chop your head off if you look at her funny. Honestly, she was one of my favorite characters in the series. She was such a badass. She is from Gray London and there is something different about her. When Delilah decides to pickpocket Kell, their world’s get torn apart. Kell was given a special rock that leads to more and more destruction.

This book was the epitome of everything I love about reading and writing. I was transported to a world where magic and treachery exist. My one gripe was that the first one hundred or so pages of the series was a little hard to get into. I kept wondering what the plot line was so I had to look at the description on Goodreads.

There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, and with one mad King–George III. Red London, where life and magic are revered–and where Kell was raised alongside Rhy Maresh, the roguish heir to a flourishing empire. White London–a place where people fight to control magic and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London. But no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red traveler, ambassador of the Maresh empire, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. 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.

Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, 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.

Other than this small slow portion, I loved the series. The writing was so unique and I felt like I was there. During her talk, Schwab mentioned how she was a little tired of how intimidating high fantasy was. She condenses thousands of pages of material into a short three book trilogy, which she does with elegance and flourish. One thing that stuck in my mind about what she said was how writers put the barriers of the story, but the rest is up to the reader to infer. We don’t need the author to always explain what the world looks like. As long as the building blocks are there, the reader can infer.

I give this series a 5/5 stars. It was such a great story and I can’t believe it’s over. I thought the ending was perfect and well worth it in the end. I think some author’s butcher the ending of a series, but this was everything I needed. Definitely go read it!