Started: 29/05/19
Finished: 17/06/19
Spoilers: Yes.
They'll be spoilers here, but quite frankly if you've read A Darker Shade of Magic you'll be spoiled for this entire book anyway. This reveiw will seem a bit disjointed. I was writing it whilst reading and so added thoughts as I went.
This took me so long to read because it simply didn't hold my attention and I was constantly distracted. I don't quite know why I made myself finish it. I guess I wanted to see if it at least had an original ending. It didn't.
I skimmed the last 150 pages, reading only the dialogue and still got the jist of everything that was happening, and was still bored.
I'm trying to review this for it own merit but I'm struggling.
It's hard to give an accurate review of something when the only parts I liked were the parts taken from another book. Meaning, I should have liked them but didn't.
A lot of comparisons will be made in this review because there are a lot of comparisons to make. The author wasn't subtle at all with this one. The similarities are screaming on the page at me, and this wouldn't be an honest review if I neglected to address them.
Chracters
Other than their characters being lesser copies of Kell and Lila, I found Finn a little too quick to bite all the time. She came across as rude and aggressive while Alfie was a total pleaser. He cared way too much about the opinion of this random rude girl.
She insults people and they just smile and say "I like her" like she's so damn charming. I think a lot of what she says is meant to be sarcasm but it just made her seem obnoxious instead.
There was a dynamic between them, but not necessarily a good one. Their friendship felt forced and awkward, somewhat toxic, even when they were getting on it still felt weird, like they didn't belong in the same book together. There was no chemistry between them, and I don't mean romantically - but there was even less of that while we're on the subject.
Normally in these kind of books where two very different people are thrown together to achieve a common goal, there's a sense that they are two halves of a whole (again not romantically, just generally), the characters should compliment each other nicely - one's weakness is another's strength, that sort of thing. There should be a smooth dynamic, an ebb and flow as they transition from enemies/strangers to something resembling friends. Even if the two characters never truly like one another, there should always be a mutual understanding birthed from their adventures together, a sort of respect.
I felt no such dynamic between these characters, unfortunately. I wanted to like them but they felt a little try-too-hard. Like their personalities were heightened in an attempt to prove they have personalities.
I love me a subtle character, and these two weren't subtle.
Plot
So try to imagine this plot.
There's a male member of the royal family, bit shy and awkward, living in a flourishing world where magic thrives. The magic system is elemental magic and also spoken magic and our dear male MC can literally make doors in walls to travel. His parents are king and queen and his closest relative/best friend is gay with an ex whom our male MC hates for breaking his relative's heart.
Then we have our female MC. She's a no-bullshit thief who yearns to travel.
She steals something important from male MC, closest relative's life ends up in danger and it's down to male MC to unleash a dark and powerful magic to save his life.
Male and female MCs must then team up and traverse the city - using his doorway magic that normally only carries him but strangely now can carry her also - to find and destroy the dark magic monster that's inhabiting people's bodies, blackening their veins, and destroying it's human hosts.
Sound familiar?
This brief synopsis is interchangeable between Nocturna and V.E. Schwab's Shades of Magic trilogy.
Even the words 'shades of magic' are used painfully often.
The very nearly DNF'ed this book half way through and then again a quarter from the end. I felt like I'd already read a better version of this year's ago, and had to really talk myself into finishing it.
I wanted to know if it ended the same way as Shades of Magic too. Spoiler: It did!
There's not much I can say about the plot really. It's just a straight copy and not a lot has been changed.
The item Finn steals is a vanishing cloak, which I will forever associate with Harry Potter. And the magic paper Alfie gives Luka (write on one and it'll appear on the other) reminded me too much of when Rhy carved words into his arm cause he knew it would appear on Kell's.
Ignacio is basically Holland from book 2, possessed by dark magic. And not only did I guess it was him immediately but I guessed he would go to the prison long before he got the idea to go there.
And let me get this straight; Finn's master plan of distraction is stuff a sock with rocks and hope the horse thinks it's a snake?? For real?? And Shrunken fireworks?? Wtf am I reading?
And so the Dragon pendant he wears absorbed some of the dark magic and now it draws from him, weakening him and tempting him to use it. Finn offers to carry it for him but he objects. Frodo and Sam, anyone?
And this supposed terrible thing he did to Paloma that makes him a monster was so underwhelming when it was finally revealed. *eye roll*
Mate you basically just threw a tantrum at her for about 10 seconds and gave her a shove, when he made it sound like he'd literally thrown her across the room into a wall, nearly killing her. *double eye roll*
Finn's catchphrase being "not today" is also jarring as this is famously Arya Stark's line and always will be Arya's.
It ends with them casting the dark magic into a black void, another world and no doubt in the sequel this dark magic will infect Dez who's trapped in this world, much like it infected Holland who was also trapped in a black void world. And then finally an unresolved chemistry and open goodbye on the docks as she leave to board a ship, not looking back - just like Kell and Lila.
There's probably a lot more similarities to other fantasy books throughout that I'm not noticing because I haven't read them.
There's very little originality here, unfortunately. This is nothing I haven't read before but better, and at this stage, I don't trust anything in this book to be an original idea.
Setting
So this was widely advertised as Latinx, an inclusive gender neutral world, but never is this actually explored.
There's probably more female characters than male, I'll give the author that, but none of them ever feel important. I mean there's the queen who we only see for like two chapters. There's some random baddie who we only really see for one chapter. There's Paloma who, for a really powerful magician is pretty fucking irrelevant. And there's a girl who's being tossed about between various princes in an arranged marriage dispute, present for one scene and the never seen again. Er...yeah.
And let's be real, other than the use of hacienda instead of house, very little else indicates that it's a spanish inspired world. I kept forgetting that it wasn't just a generic fantasy city with a palace until another hacienda is mentioned.
I swear authors nowadays just use words like Latinx and Gender Neutral in their query letters to agents cause they got a better chance of publication if they pretend to be inclusive. "But Luka is gay," I hear you cry.
Yes. Yes, he is. And this is explored through all of one paragraph when an ex starts giving him lip at a party. *triple eye roll*
If you're Latinx or gender neutral and you're looking for representation. Sadly, I don't think you'll find it here. Nothing in this book gives me any indication that it's either.
As for the magic system. I found it a little confusing. Not the elemental part, that's the oldest magic system in the book, but the propios. I was confused as hell and they're never actually explained.
Does everyone have them, or just a talented few? Why are they all different? Are they specifically catered to each person or are they just random powers?
In a nutshell, the world is severely under-developed.
Writing Style
There are so many redundant passages in here. So much is repeated over and over in regards to the characters' feelings and past events. Every other sentence is something that I already read at some point.
And I believe the phrase is 'show not tell' not 'show then tell.'
We're shown something and then told about it for good measure, as if we can't figure it out on our own from simply reading it but we need it explaining too. Its maddeningly annoying.
(see what I just did? I showed you something and then I told you about it for good messure. Annoying, right?)
The metaphors and analogies are cringey and, not gonna lie, got real fed up with seeing the word Maldito on every page.
Another thing I don't like in books is when the same scene is told again from a different perspective. That just feels kinda fan-fictiony to me. (Wouldn't be surprised if this first began as a Shades of Magic fan-fiction) Same goes for italicised flashbacks. I don't like them. They just feel really amateurish to me.
I remembered reading those flashback
chapters and thinking, 'damn, this feels
really amateurish; almost fan-fictiony.
(see what I did there? Italicised flashback and a "show then tell". Damn, I'm so good at bad writing I should just be writer. Seems to work for everyone else these days)
There's also some grammatical issues and poor sentence structure, but the blame falls partly on the editor. I mean, was this book even edited? How did it not receive a serious R&R. I don't don't understand how an agent and then an editor both read this and were like, "Yep, that's perfect. Get it printed." It's baffling!
And I'll just leave this here. "The library, the most boring room in the whole palace."
*eyes roll so hard they fall out of head* Thanks for your input, Luka, please resume being the most needless character in the book.
Final Impression . . . I think I'll just read A Darker Shade of Magic again.
*fumbles on floor for eyes*
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