A Gathering of Shadows
Year: 2016
Author: V.E. Schwab
Length: 969 minutes / 16.15 hours
It’s been five years since I read the first book in this series and the only thing I remembered was that I thought that book was just kind of average. Nevertheless, I finally got around to reading A Gathering of Shadows, hoping that something would improve the series going forward. Fortunately, I found the last half of this book to be entertaining. That I had to sit through the boring first part wasn’t great and seems to be a continuing issue with this series. There’s something to be said about starting a story in the right spot.
As was the case again, the main character just doesn’t resonate with me that much. Luckily, there were enough other characters who stole the spotlight and brought up the entertainment value for me. Even with my last exposure to this series being five years ago, my memory of these characters came back easily. And while I didn’t grasp the full extent of the magic in A Darker Shade of Magic, this book did a much better job of providing examples of magic in use that were varied and powerful enough to be interesting.
Of course, my biggest problem with A Gathering of Shadows is that we don’t even get a mention of the Magic Games until half-way through the book. At that point, we don’t even get to see them happen until the book is 75% over. Nothing in the first half seemed important enough to merit that number of pages to it when the real action and political intrigue started at the 50% mark. I understand the need to bridge the gap between the first book and this one, but there’s something to be said about the brevity of summarization.
An improvement on the series, but still starting in the wrong spot, I give A Gathering of Shadows 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
