A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab is a fantasy novel that follows the adventures of Kell and Lila in a magical universe with four parallel Londons: Red London, Grey London, White London, and Black London. Each of these cities contains magic that affects them in different ways, and some Londons are more dangerous than others. Kell is a magician from Red London who has the ability to travel between the four parallel cities. While his official line of work is carrying messages between the monarchs of each city, he also commits crimes. Because he can’t resist the allure of the magical objects that each London contains, he smuggles them between worlds to barter and trade with. One night, Kell finds himself with a mysterious stone that comes from the London no one dares speak of: Black London, a city that was corrupted by ruthless dark magic. With the help of Delilah Bard, nicknamed Lila, who is a cutthroat thief and aspiring pirate, he must find a way to return the stone before it consumes his world.

I have mixed feelings about this book, but overall I enjoyed the concept of the world and the magic system in it. Schwab’s writing style is quick and precise in a way that makes the novel easy to read while also maintaining a lyrical quality. One thing that I really appreciated were the the character’s distinct personalities, even though some were more subtle than others. Lila, for example, is unique in that she strays from the stereotypical traits seen in female protagonists. She is cutthroat, has little compassion or sympathy for anyone but herself, and is a morally gray character as a whole. She is also different from other female protagonists because she seems to prefer presenting herself as male. When she is stealing things, she crossdresses so people don’t know who she is, and when given the option, she chooses to wear a suit for a ball instead of a dress. One of my favorite lines is when Lila tries on the suit: “...there was nothing to scoff at now. Delilah Bard looked like a king.” I could really feel her sense of empowerment in this moment.

While the characters were great, there were a few core things that I didn’t enjoy about the novel. For one, the main adventure only begins around page 200, which is exactly halfway through the book. The beginning, especially the first 40 pages, was hard to get through. In addition, I found that there was a real lack of imagery to describe the world. The reader is told early on that the story is set in the early 1800’s, but having not lived in that time period, I don’t know what that looks like. We as readers get descriptions of major magical monuments, but are left to fill in the blanks for little things, such as the style of buildings or of people’s clothes.

My main issue with this book was the plot, specifically surrounding Kell and Lila’s adventure. They seemed to achieve their goals far too easily, which made the storyline somewhat predictable. In addition to this, there was a lot of “just knowing” when things went wrong or one of them needed to be saved. Instead of being one arc as a whole, the adventure seemed to have lots of little ups and downs as the pair seemingly fought their way through every adversary effortlessly. They never lost a battle, and for me, they had just a little too much luck.

Overall, I think this is a good book with an interesting concept, but it’s not a new favorite. I don’t think I would recommend it as highly as other books.