Review: Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab || Were my expectations too high?

Our Dark Duet

Monsters of Verity #2

Victoria Schwab

THE WORLD IS BREAKING. AND SO ARE THEY.

KATE HARKER isn’t afraid of monsters. She hunts them. And she’s good at it.

AUGUST FLYNN once yearned to be human. He has a part to play. And he will play it, no matter the cost.

THE WAR HAS BEGUN.

THE MONSTERS ARE WINNING.

Kate will have to return to Verity. August will have to let her back in. And a new monster is waiting—one that feeds on chaos and brings out its victims’ inner demons.

Which will be harder to conquer: the monsters they face, or the monsters within?

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Published: June 13th 2017

Death, Gore, Blood, Murder, War Themes, Violence

It wasn’t easy. The world was complicated. Life was hard. And so often, living hurt.

So make it worth the pain.”

… I’m a little disappointed. Not saying this was a bad book— it definitely wasn’t. But I was just expecting… more. I feel like something was missing on all fronts.

There’s a bit of a time jump— Kate’s now a monster hunter and August is sacrificing his humanity to be what his people need. And it felt underdeveloped in some areas. Kate’s friends that make an appearance for 2-3 chapters, just to never be heard from again, the romance (though it really wasn’t tbh) and the new character appearance (we’ll get to that later).

“Monsters were born from monstrous acts. But here were monstrous acts without the monstrous aftermath. The only aftermath, in fact, appeared to be the creature itself, the violence fed back into its source, leaving nothing but bodies in its wake.”

We’re still stuck in one location and we’re getting more out of the philosophy of good, evil and exceptions— mostly from August’ POV. And I liked it. There was one particular scene that really stood out and expanded on how intentions behind actions changes things, despite the evil deed.

But I do feel like Kate lost some of her badassness, at least until the end. She doesn’t really do anything— in fact, this feels more like August’ story and it’s fine… but when they both have a POV, I’d like both to be engaging, ya know?

However, there is a new Sunai who’s genderfluid and they were interesting in their character development. Their limited view on good vs. evil contrast August’ and in the end, you can see them changing their belief. I’d love to have a separate story on them— how they came to be, what their life was like before they started working with August, etc.

What I appreciated about This Savage Song is the lack of romance despite it being sold as Romeo and Juliet… and I would have been here for it here… if it didn’t come out of no where. They haven’t seen each other in months and then this happens? I don’t understand. And I didn’t like it— the development of their relationship wasn’t the best. Yet, I get what Schwab was trying to do. No spoilers, but it’s not all what it seems. Trust me.

But that segues to the fact that I wasn’t feeling the characters really until the end. Ilsa had a bigger role and we finally get into her backstory, we get to know August’ parent’s more (which was fun), but… I wasn’t fully with them.

The best thing about this entire book was the villains ~~what is new~~. Alice and Sloane now have a POV and their interactions and relationship was so good. Their push against each other, the power dynamic and how each had their own goals, using the other for their own gains— Alice was such a great character. She had her singular goal, but she just intrigued me whenever she came on the page— she was a true page stealer.

But then there was another villain, a new monster, one no one has ever heard before. I… don’t know why it was needed— Sloane and Alice with their motivations could have been conflict enough, but *shrugs*. It even has a few short POV chapters and it was mostly singleminded in it’s motivations. And unlike Alice, it wasn’t intriguing since it had a lack of backstory. It literally popped up out of no where… no one knows why or how. I just don’t think it was a needed character.

“There were two kinds of monsters, the kind that hunted the streets and the kind that lived in your head. She could fight the first, but the second was more dangerous. It was always, always, always a step ahead.”

Despite everything, the ending did make me cry. And it was probably another favorite part of mine. It was action packed, the final showdown was epic, Kate and Ilsa were amazing; though everything before this was kind of a let down, this ending put some pep in the story.

I won’t call this a bad book, but too much was implemented and execution wasn’t fleshed out. This was still an enjoyable read, but compared to the first… it doesn’t hold up.