✨ jami ✨'s Reviews > This Savage Song

“He wasn't made of flesh and bone, or starlight.
He was made of darkness.”

monsters who wish they were human, and a human girl doing all she can to become a monster. Victoria Schwab always comes up with the best concepts, and This Savage Song is no exception - there's morally grey characters, deadly music, gangs, violence breeding actual physical monsters and so much more.

I never actually intended to read this book. I enjoy what V.E Schwab does and liked both Vicious and A Darker Shade of Magic, but I just had it in my head I wouldn't enjoy this book. The theming sounded uninteresting to me and I wasn't sold on some of the plot elements. This book definitely took me by surprise in terms of how much I liked it. It was full of action and I adored the worldbuilding. Honestly, worldbuilding is always my favourite aspect of Schwab's books, followed by characters.

As I said, the worldbuilding was impeccable. We're introduced to a city where violent acts create actual monsters, and a war between two rival gangs has seen the city divided between the North and the South. I loved the entire aesthetic of the setting and just the entire concept of all these monsters. Victoria Schwab is just so excellent at coming up with intriguing and palpable settings for her stories, and I just want to know more and more about them.

Although I generally like Schwab's character work, I do think it was lacking just a little bit here. While the characters are still well written, and I really liked them I feel like they weren't as complex as they could have been. Victoria Schwab always creates characters with dimensions but I think both August and Kate felt a bit predictable. Like I had seen them before.

“Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
In with gunfire and out with smoke.”

One of the things I didn't like about this was that it was too repetitive. What I mean is: Schwab parrots themes and ideas she's introduced in her other books, and while that's fine, coming straight off reading Vicious this felt really repetitive. And so the whole thematic thing going on didn't really grab me.

However, what did grab me was the breakneck speed of this book. I think of all the Schwab books I've read, this one has the most well constructed plot. It was tight, and it didn't falter one bit. There was always some action occurring, and tension rising, which made this hard to put down. I have had pacing issues with Schwab before but they were nowhere to be seen here, and that is a testament to her growth as an author between this book and say, Vicious.

August found himself nodding, even though he spent most of his time afraid. Afraid of what he was, afraid of what he wasn’t, afraid of unraveling, becoming something else, becoming nothing

I definitely enjoyed this, and I want to read Our Dark Duet asap it's not my favourite of her works (I tend to enjoy her adult more?) but this was still really good. I love Victoria Schwab, I think she comes up with the most interesting and exciting premises of any author going at the moment, and her worlds and setting are always so freakin amazing. While I didn't think this was the perfect book, I still really enjoyed it, for it's excellent action, plotting and pacing.