Our second case of pandering comes from our female MC, Lila*. Sure he is our MC’s best friend/adopted brother and serves some purpose in the story, but he’s mostly a token character since there is nothing more to him. Prince Rhy is well, a prince, but he’s also bi/pan/omnisexual…. However, I don’t care for having one-dimensional characters just for the sake of faux-representation. Currently, YA books are trying their darnedest to be inclusive, which I personally think is a great step in modern storytelling. That’s the same feeling I got from this book.įurther, I felt like there was a lot of pandering going on here. Think back to when you were a kid and wanted something for your birthday so much and were so sure that you were going to get it and even if you got plenty of nice things, the fact that you didn’t get the one thing you wanted made you disappointed. Let me explain: it’s been hyped up everywhere and when that happens, expectations tend to run very high. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.īefore you jump down my throat, I didn’t hate this novel as much as I felt let down by it. Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.Īfter an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. Kell was raised in Arnes-Red London-and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see. Kell is one of the last Antari-magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Schwab a darker shade of magic