This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity, #1) by Victoria Schwab

My rating: five stars

Genre: YA, fantasy, dystopian

Edition: paperback

Goodreads Summary: There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

This. Book. Is. So. Freaking. Good. I cannot believe I waited this long to read it. To be honest I hadn’t ever heard of it, which is such a shame because it was phenomenal! I am going to try and immediately pick up the second one.

Likes: I LOVE the cover. It is so simple and yet has a bunch of little details that you will find if you look closely. I can tell that a lot of thought was put into the cover and I really appreciate that. (I am speaking about the US cover because that is the one I own. However, the UK cover is so beautiful I am tempted to buy it too.) I also like how there are different types of monsters based on the tragedy that happened that created them. That is so creative, I have never heard of anything like that before. The powers that August has and how Victoria Schwab describes them is beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Every time he uses his powers I get chills. That is another thing that I like – Victoria’s writing style! I know she is extremely popular and now I know why. Her writing is so descriptive, I can actually visualize what is happening and it makes me not want to put the book down. I also liked the complexity of the main character. Here we have August who thinks he is evil and a monster, when really he is a pretty good character, and we also have Kate who thinks she is good whereas she is planning to do some bad things to please her father and is overall morally gray. The contrasting visions of themselves really put some depth in the book.

Dislikes: I literally don’t even know. There were characters I didn’t like but she wrote them to be unlikable – it was purposeful on her part. The ending wasn’t my favorite ending ever. I see why she did it, but at the same time I feel like there were so many other options on the character’s part, what happened didn’t need to in my opinion.

Overall, this book was incredible! I feel like I have been saying this about so many books lately, but it another favorite!! I am glad that I have been reading so many good books recently, and this one was definitely towards the top of the list! This book had complex characters, a deep storyline, and very descriptive writing. It almost doesn’t seem YA with how dark it gets, which I love. I feel like people are often judged for reading YA because people don’t think the genre is mature, and this book proves that wrong. It is deep and dark and something that really made me think about life. I loved it!