10% First Impressions: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Apparently a lot of books about uncovering the secrets of magic take place in England, often centered around London. One of my favorites, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, sees the protagonist travel all over Europe but a large portion of the book takes place in London. Another book I'm currently reading Dan Vyleta's Smoke also made pains to highlight London as a convergence of magic and social classes - essentially the theme of the whole book. V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic sees the city as a common point tying together the dimensions through which our dimension-hopping magician protagonist Kell travels.

Based on the writing style and the story setting my assumption was that the author was British. Apparently she's American. How interesting. I guess it's not an idiosyncrasy of nationality but just the writing style? Whatever the reason, because of the phrasal structuring I found myself re-reading portions of the text, a two-edged sword. Sentences at once gave a lot of information and demanded you infer the rest.

This paragraph will have spoilers because I want to speculate on what I expect from the story and points I'm not entirely clear on. This being the first of a trilogy I don't know how much information will be revealed at the end of this book, but I entirely suspect that all the Antari are from Black London. Is Black London actually gone and closed off? The whole black eye thing sounds wonderful. Is Rhy going to betray Kell? It seems obvious to me that Kell is going to be the one to reopen the magic flow between worlds. Is Holland an Antari from White London? Based on the book flap, a Delilah Bard somehow forces Kell to take her through to another world. How does that work? Especially if Kell, and any of Antari, has control over the bone element of magic. I thought maybe she would control his bones but if his existence is so extra-magic and extraordinary how is it that she "forces Kell to spirit her away to another world for a proper adventure?"

I don't remember exactly why I added this book to my wishlist and thanks to booktube I know it's apparently a very popular series, but I'm not feeling strongly one way or the other yet with regards to the book. I think that knowledge might have added extra hype before I started reading, but I'm glad I've not fallen to hype and know little enough to have an unaffected opinion. Based on what I've read so far I'd say I'm likely to continue with the series. Bland and hardly unexpected is the association of "black" with negative or evil. If my suspicions prove correct this may not hold, but that remains to be seen.

[10% First Impressions is a series where I read 10% of a book and give my first impressions of it.]