This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab | Monster, May I?

 (It took me forever to get this picture right. Appreciate it, please.)

August Flynn is a monster. He can see the souls of people who have sinned, and then with a song from his violin, he can steal their soul.

Kate Harker is a monstrous human. One of the first scenes with this girl is her burning down a chapel, so, yeah, she's not really the "typical YA protagonist" that we see.

Schwab is one of my favorite authors. She has an incredible talent for crafting characters, and that for me always comes across as the strongest point in her books. They are all so complex and real and, often if not always, not entirely good. To be cliche and pull out my inner Harry Potter nerd, no person is ever wholly good or wholly evil, and I think that Schwab is really talented at creating characters with both light and dark inside them.

Also on the note of characters, there are some amazing side characters in this book. August's family, especially his brother and sister, are so interesting and don't fall to the wayside as many YA family members do.

I'm not typically a fan of urban fantasy (meaning: I normally just don't read it) but that's what this is and it's made me interested in checking out more from this genre. 

The history that Schwab creates in this book of an America that has fallen and changed is (let me say it for the thousandth time) endlessly interesting. The beginning of the book does get a little information-heavy; however, because the monsters and how they work and the division of the main city is so interesting, I ate up and valued the information rather than finding it sluggish.

Something happens in this book that genuinely made me stop and freak out a bit. This happens very rarely for me in books, so I was very happy to see that Schwab had made me care so much for these characters that I had to put the book down for a second to calm down. 

I did find the ending ever so slightly underwhelming, but it was only really one aspect of the ending that it really didn't bother me too much. I'm happy with how the story ultimately ended, and I'm now very much anticipating Our Dark Duet, which releases in June of this year.

FAVORITE QUOTES

It was a cruel trick of the universe, thought August, that he only felt human after doing something so monstrous.

 But the teacher had been right about one thing: violence breeds. Someone pulls a trigger, sets off a bomb, drives a bus full of tourists off a bridge, and what's left in the wake isn't just shell casings, wreckage, bodies. There's something else. Something bad. An aftermath. A recoil. A reaction to all that anger and pain and death.

This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1) by Victoria Schwab
Published: 5 July 2016 by Greenwillow Books
Format - Length: Hardcover - 427 pages
Source: Owlcrate
Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy
Goodreads | My Goodreads Review
Amazon | Barnes and Noble

There’s no such thing as safe.

Kate Harker wants to be as ruthless as her father. After five years and six boarding schools, she’s finally going home to prove that she can be.

August Flynn wants to be human. But he isn’t. He’s a monster, one that can steal souls with a song. He’s one of the three most powerful monsters in a city overrun with them. His own father’s secret weapon.

Their city is divided.

Their city is crumbling.

Kate and August are the only two who see both sides, the only two who could do something.

But how do you decide to be a hero or a villain when it’s hard to tell which is which?

Have you read this book? What's your favorite Schwab book? Tell me down in comments!

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January Wrap-Up + February TBR | 2017

January was almost a complete month of rereads. I needed to clean my slate after a very messy reading year in 2016. Also, my February TBR is ridiculous for a month that only has 28 days.

Wrap Up

• THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW (#1): This was a reread for me. I really love how Lewis crafts the creation of this world. I want to finally finish this series this year, so I wanted to reread the first two in preparation for that. 4 STARS
• HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (#1): I mean, duh, I've obviously read this before. I hadn't read the illustrated edition with all of Jim Kay's beautiful illustrations, so I needed to do that. 5 STARS
• AFTER THE FALL: I wasn't the biggest fan of this book. I think it talks about important topics, and it has some nice humor. However, this book felt all over the place for me. It didn't seem to have a purpose or a point but rather about 12 points it was trying to make all at once. If you want a full review, click the title to go to my Goodreads review. 1.5 STARS
• THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE (#2) : This is one of my all-time favorite books. Need I say more? 5 STARS
• MARCH, BOOK ONE: This was amazing. I highly recommend this one. This is part one of a trilogy of Maus-style comics about John Lewis's involvement with the Civil Rights movement in the southern US; this first volume mainly takes place in Nashville when Lewis was a college student. 5 STARS
• PAPER PRINCESS: uGH. This book was really frustrating. There's genuinely no way that I can summarize my feelings, so if you want to know my full thoughts, click the title to go to my Goodreads review. I'm going to read the second book, but I hate myself for it. 2 STARS

February TBR

• CROOKED KINGDOM: I've had this book since the release. I'm just going to keep putting it on TBRs until I finish it. Hopefully (*knocks on wood*) this will be the last one.
• THIS SAVAGE SONG: I snagged this audiobook from my library's overdrive. I've already started it, and--naturally--I'm in love.
• GEMINA: Again, another audiobook that I snagged. (And, again, another book I've had since it's release.) I'm a good chunk of the way through this. Hopefully, I'll finish it ASAP.
• LUMBERJANES, VOL. 4: Lumberjanes is one of my all-time favorite comics. I'm more surprised that I haven't already read this.

• WONDER WOMAN, VOL 2 & 3: A couple months ago, I discovered my love of Wonder Woman. She is brilliant and strong, and I'm a little bitter that I wasn't introduced to her as a child. 
• CIVIL WAR: Despite my newfound love of Wonder Woman, I'm a Marvel girl through and through. I think I've developed enough of an understanding of the MU and the characters to finally read this one.
• GOLDIE VANCE, VOL. 1: BOOM! Box is my favorite comic publisher. (They publish Giant Days and Lumberjanes, two of my favorites.) I've loved everything I've read from them. A couple months ago, the first volume in a new series was published. I just got approved to review this book on Netgalley, so I'm going to finish it ASAP. (It's almost like Nancy Drew, but with a kick-ass WOC main character.)

• THE PRINCESS DIARIST: I never got into Star Wars in my more formative years. In fact, the first one that I ever watched was The Force Awakens when it came out last Christmas. I didn't really get obsessed until after Carrie Fisher died in December. 
• HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (#2): I need to read this illustrated edition as well. I don't need to explain myself.

What was your favorite book of January? What book are you hoping to read this month? Have you read any of the books I've mentioned? Let me know down in comments!

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