Review: This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

Challenges:
Around the Year in 52 Books: A book with at least two perspectives (multiple points of view)



In this book we follow August and Kate. They live on opposite sides of the Seam, a wall that divides their city in two. Kate is human and wants nothing more than to impress her mafia-crime-boss-like father, while August is a monster created from an act of violence. However he wants nothing more than to be human. 

The two halves of the city have lived in more or less peace since a truce, but this truce is starting to fall apart, when monsters get sick of being treated like servants. Kate and August soon find themselves on the run while trying to figure out what is happening and who is behind the attacks that threaten the truce. 

When I heard people talking about this book one of the main points was that there was no romance. This is true. August and Kate seem set up for the classic hate-to-love relationship in YA, but they just never quite make it there. Sure, they end up not hating each other, but there is not even a whiff of romance or deeper feeling. Which was quite refreshing. 

The world building was definitely a bit quick, and some things weren’t really explained, like why the Malchai would settle for being basically servants, when they could just roam free, feeding on the people of the city. And I really wanted to know more about the “phenomenon” which they reference a couple of times. I assumed it was something that happened that made the creation of monsters possible, but I would like to know a bit more about it. 

Other than these few things, I really did enjoy the world and this book was nothing if not action packed. I would definitely recommend it to everyone and I gave it 4 stars out of 5. It has a sequel called “Our Dark Duet” and I will definitely be picking that up. 


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