Tuesday, July 19, 2016

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from author Victoria Schwaba young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.



Rating: 4/5 Stars


BookTubeAthon: Read a book after dark.



“People are users. It’s a universal truth. Use them, or they’ll use you.”



I’ve heard about Victoria Schwab for a good while now, but this is my first time reading her books. Does it ever happen to you guys that you see popular books/authors and are afraid of trying of fear you’ll be the black sheep? Nope? Just me? Okay then.

This book was so interesting! And I know that that’s a shallow thing to say in order to describe something; interesting how? Why? Well that’s the thing, This Savage Song touches upon so many subjects that it’s hard to name them all; you have complex characters that are both opposite and complimentary. You have a plot revolving monsters and human nature and which is which. You have all this amazing and juicy stuff that my limited vocabulary can only describe as "interesting".

But at its core, This Savage Song is a character-driven story and it’s well done because the main characters, August and Kate are curious enough to carry on with the story.


In a world were monster are born from the evil deeds of humans, the city of Verity is divided in half. One belonging to Harker, a corrupt man who charges for the protection of his citizens against monsters (and those who fail to pay are killed) and the other belonging to Flynn, who treats monsters as his family and tries to protect the people on his side of town.

Kate is Harker's daughter, she wants to prove she can make her father proud and enter the family business, desperately trying to rid herself of any weakness.
August is a sunai, a monster born from violence and he struggles everyday to keep his humanity with him.

They were both similar and opposites in their struggles, both afraid of one another but still forming a strange bond thanks to the extreme circumstances they are thrown in.
I loved their friendship, and this is certainly the core of the story. There was no romance between those two, and even though I usually like some in my fantasy novels (read SOME not four hundred pages of insta-love) it fit very well here. Maybe some will come later on, maybe not. Either way I'm still happy with the friendship these two have developed here.

If there's something I wasn't a super fan off, was the writing. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad; it was pretty and descriptive but sometimes it could get dense and abuse repetitions.

In the end, This Savage Song was a compelling and character-driven story that's certainly worth a try!

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