A Gathering of Shadows

Unfortunately, this book suffers from "second book in the trilogy" syndrome in that it is mostly set-up for the third one. It also ends in a cliffhanger. I found Lila's plot really annoying and unbelievable. I understand what the author was going for but I think that could have been achieved in a better way. The new relationship between Kell and Rhy due to events in the first book is explored only in a very shallow manner. It takes quite a while before the book gets going and then we really spend almost all of the second half on a tournament of wizards while the book hardly explores the much more interesting goings-on in White London. I did burn through the audiobook regardless but the book is a clear let-down compared to the first. But because of the cliffhanger, I'll read the third book, too.

On a par with the first. A mostly fun romp. Drags a little in the middle, and is marred for me by the occasional use of very modern turns of phrase which I find very distracting (e.g. someone in a regency-ish era London claiming they're good at "multi-tasking").

An absolute page turner if I've ever read one (I couldn't put this book down). Each time I sat down to read, it only took a few sentences to transport me completely into this world that V.E. Schwab has so carefully built.

A Gathering of Shadows develops the characters introduced in the previous book (along with some fresh faces), portrays the evolution of their relationships with one another and sets everything up for what I'm confident is going to be a riveting conclusion to the trilogy.

Reading through A Darker Shade of Magic, I became a fan of V.E. Schwab's work. Reading through the sequel I've been left slack jawed in awe.

I've read a lot of books in my life and I can count on one hand the number of times I've felt this blown away by words on a page.

Just stop whatever you're doing and read these books. Thank you.

I didn't care for this at all. It's as if this book took the great premise of the first book and kinda ignored it. Instead we get lots of angsty Kell, and Lila, a magic contest that wasn't exciting with just the occasional hint of the overlying plot. My biggest problem is that I learned I don't give a shit about these characters. It read like YA and I don't like most modern YA. Probably not going to finish the series.

I mostly enjoyed the concept of this world, not necessarily its storytelling. Here we find parallel worlds, with a different amount of magic in it, and all they have in common is London and its river. We have Grey London, which is ours, but felt a bit Dickensian, with almost no magic left. We have Red London, with an abundance of it, White London where cruelty and magic as absolute power reign, and finally there used to be Black London, destroyed by magic.

A race called Antari can move between worlds with blood magic, and our protagonist Kell is one of two known Antari. He is from Red London and works for the royals, delivering messages between the rulers of each London. But on a trip to White London he receives an artifact from fallen Black London that changes everything. He finds that he needs help from a young woman from Grey London, a wanna-be pirate called Lila.

I thought Lila was a cool character, but I am not fully sure that I ever found Kell to have a real personality, other than deeply caring about Prince Rhy. But I am willing to find out more about who these Antari actually are, so I shall be picking up the next book as well. Good entertainment, but nothing stellar, so 3.5 stars for me.

DNF For now, may come back to this. Interesting world and I like a couple of the characters but it's a little... idk wandering I guess? Struggling to stay interested.

I'm giving this one a 2.5...unfortunately Schwab fell into all the traps for a second book that make them nauseatingly painful to read. Not only were the rules established in the original book for the magic ignored, but this is also a transitional book. The first one had a full story arc, all the while leaving the door open for follow on books...this is not that. It is hardly a book, it is the long setup for the next book. Multiple story lines, multiple people, multiple scenes could have been deleted and we still would have had this intro to the next book. If it wasn't for how well the prose is written, not sure if I would have stuck with it....but then now I have to read the next book to get any closure...so...success????