A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)
A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2)
A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic #3)
By: V.E. Schwab
My Rating: Three out of Five Stars
Best for: Adults

This series has fans.

I’m not one of them.

Four different worlds, all connected by London and magic. Each London is different, but each is geographically located in the same place, each is called London, and each has magic. There used to be magical gates that connected the cities together, but bad magic forced the Londons to isolate themselves, and now only the most powerful magicians are able to travel between them.

Magic is quarantined to prevent the bad stuff that happened in one London from traveling to the other Londons…except the quarantine doesn’t work, bad London magic finds it’s way into good London, and all the good guy magicians have to beat the bad magic before the happy Londons become the same as the sad Londons.

Doesn’t seem like enough explanation? I’d tell you to read the books to learn more, but that sums up the world building. The world, the magic, the backstories, and the characters all stayed general and superficial.

Good fantasy makes the fantasy seem real. This story never got there.

If you’re into feelings, emotions, and descriptive eye color, though, you’d better hang on–you’re in for a real treat!  There’s plenty of that in there.

Not into it? Probably skip this one.

Now, it wasn’t all bad. There is an interesting story–I was moved enough to read all three books, after all. The character development is sort of okay, and the bad guy was pretty creepy.

But for every good thing, there were two dumb things, and in the end I felt like I could have skipped it and not felt like I missed a thing.

Content-conscious folks will want to know there is a lot of blood, both male/female and male/male PG-13 sexual content, and plenty of colorful 4-letter words that start with sh and f. There is a gay relationship that is physical and plays a key role in the story.

In other words, grown-ups only.

Happy Reading!