This Savage Song

This Savage Song

 

Victoria Schwab

 

 

I know a lot of people are obsessed with Schwab, but between this and ADSoM, I haven't been too impressed. There were definitely things I liked about this book, but in the end it didn't really have a hold on me.

 

The best part of this book was the setting. Very original, this book is about a city called Verity that's overrun by monsters. When the monsters first appeared, people debated how to deal with them and eventually split into 2: North City & South City with a barrier in between. South City is ruled by Flynn, who believes that everyone should band together to fight the monsters. North City is ruled by Harker, who accepts payment for protection from the monsters (and is quite rich). There are typically 3 types of monsters:

 

“Corsai, Corsai, tooth and claw,
Shadow and bone will eat you raw.
Malchai, Malchai, sharp and sly,
Smile and bite and drink you dry.”
“Sunai, Sunai, eyes like coal,
Sing you a song and steal your soul.”

 

The world was pretty cool, but definitely could have gone deeper. The book focused more on the characters, who really fell flat for me. Our two main characters are basically the children of the two leaders. August is actually a Sunai who considers Flynn his father and fears losing what's left of his humanity. Kate is on a mission to prove to Harker that she's just like him. I really didn't mind August, but Kate pissed me off a lot.

 

As someone who gets scared pretty easily, this book did not scare me. The monsters and the atmosphere just weren't dark enough; it may have just been that I wasn't too into the story, but it seemed pretty boring.

 

In the end, it just fell flat to me. The ending seemed rushed and there's no need for a second book. As with ADSoM, I felt like Schwab just decided she wanted to make this a series so she had to create the epilogue to show that the story wasn't over. I'll probably still read the next, but I'm really hoping I find one of her books appealing (maybe Vicious?), because right now I just don't understand the hype.