Favorite Author Highlight~V.E. Schwab~

"If Eli really was a hero, and Victor meant to stop him, did that make him a villain?

He took a long sip of his drink, tipped his head back against the couch, and decided he could live with that.” 

~Vicious by V.E. Schwab

If you haven't noticed by my header on top, that I am very fond of the Author V.E. Schwab (also known as Victoria Schwab, the name she uses for her Young Adult series.)

A little backstory into how I found her books, and how I've come to love her writing style and the worlds that she builds. About a year and a half ago I was going through a reading slump. I still claimed that I loved to read, but I haven't found a book that I could really connect with. At least, not any new ones.

I always fell back to the same books, such as the Giver by Lois Lowry (I do have the second book in that series, but have yet to pick it up) and Lord of the Rings. I was stagnant when it came to reading and it possibly had to do with my lack of motivation to pick up a book. However, anything I found on the shelf was lackluster and I didn't care about finishing it. 

With me, I was always looking for a book that I loved so much that I could not put down.

One day I was at a local bookstore, and I found A Gathering of Shadows. Now at the time I didn't know that this was the second book in the Shades of Magic series, but I was intrigued by the summary still and I loved the artwork. 

Long story short, I finally got A Darker Shade of Magic and honestly the minute I started reading it-I could not put the book down. If I recall correctly, I finished Darker Shade of Magic in a day, and finished a Gathering of Shadows in two. 

I'm not going to go much into detail about why I love the Shades of Magic series, other than I love how Schwab builds her worlds and how she just doesn't focus on the two protagonists. Kell and Lila are great characters in their own right, but the secondary characters aren't pushed to the wayside and their characters are fleshed out very well.

One thing about Schwab that I will always appreciate, is how she deals on the subject of characters sexuality and how they are represented. I always appreciated how the two canon bi/gay characters in the book are not defined just by their focus of attraction. It's not over the top, stereotypical and it feels like it's normal and flows well with the story.

One of the most recent works I read by Schwab is the Villians series, which include both Vicious (which came out five years ago) and Vengeful which came out just recently. (I did go to the book signing for this, despite not having read Vicious yet. I will make another post about meeting Schwab -for the second time- another day.)

Unfortunately I have not read any of her other books, as I said time is not a thing I have a whole lot of and I like to binge-read when I can. V.E. Schwab definitely makes it easier for me by making her worlds interesting.

If you haven't checked out any of her books, I would highly recommend checking them out. My next step is to read the Savage Song, which is one of her YA titles! 

Right now a personal favorite is Vicious, which as stated is the first book in the Villain series. 

That's all for now!

Happy reading!