Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    This Savage Song
    This Savage Song
    This Savage Song
    Audiobook10 hours

    This Savage Song

    Written by V. E. Schwab

    Narrated by Therese Plummer

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    #1 New York Times Bestseller * An Amazon Best Book of the Year

    There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from acclaimed author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake.

    The first of two books, This Savage Song is a must-have for fans of Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, and Laini Taylor.

    Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music.

    When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

    In This Savage Song, Victoria Schwab creates a gritty, seething metropolis, one worthy of being compared to Gotham and to the four versions of London in her critically acclaimed fantasy for adults, A Darker Shade of Magic. Her heroes will face monsters intent on destroying them from every side—including the monsters within.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJul 5, 2016
    ISBN9780062468116
    Author

    V. E. Schwab

    V. E. Schwab is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, ranging from middle grade to teen to adult. Her books have garnered critical acclaim and been featured in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, the Washington Post, and NPR; have been translated into more than a dozen languages; and been optioned for television and film. Schwab, an avid traveler, received her MFA from the University of Edinburgh, where her thesis was about the presence of monsters in medieval art. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

    More audiobooks from V. E. Schwab

    Related to This Savage Song

    Related audiobooks

    YA Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Bone Shard Daughter

      Sep 9, 2020

      RELEASED 10 SEPTEMBER 448 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Andrea Stewart Publisher Orbit Books Epic fantasy has long had a thing for One True Kings. You know the drill: a dreadful tyrant is murdering people for fun and generally imperilling t

      1 min read

    • Article

      Benjamin Nugent

      Jun 15, 2018

      Claire’s roommates threw her out on November third, for falling behind on rent and hogging the Xbox. During the next three weeks, she lived in other people’s houses. She missed the Xbox, but couch surfing was like a game. She had to not smell like co

      20 min read

    • Article

      The Witch Finders

      Jul 16, 2020

      Beth pulled her cloak tightly around her. It was the very last day of October and the air was damp and chill. Dead autumn leaves lay in deep piles in the woods and smoke curled into the night air from her cottage. Not far to go now. She bent her head

      4 min read

    • Article

      My Country Childhood

      Sep 4, 2019

      AUTHOR AND FORMER executive director of the Australian Writers Guild, Angela Wales, 71, moved from Bondi in Sydney to Walcha in the Northern Tablelands of NSW when she was five years old. Angela’s father, Bob, was to take over a struggling sheep prop

      7 min read

    • Article

      Lost Children

      Aug 4, 2022

      Lost Children
      5 min read

    • Article

      Raiders From The Sea

      Sep 1, 2023

      CANNY LIFTED HER head from the swirls of gold and red and put down the brush, stretching her frozen fingers. The sun fell through the scriptorium window in warm panels, but the room was still cold, and she’d been at work on the manuscript in front of

      7 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      May 19, 2021

      Dot works at the Lost Property Office in Baker Street, where she is custodian of lost items. In her dedicated quest to reconnect people with their lost property, she becomes deeply moved by the emotional significance of memories attached to some of t

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Haunting

      Aug 15, 2023

      A Haunting
      10 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Special

      Dec 28, 2023

      Summer Reading Special
      11 min read

    • Article

      Alice And The Jabberwocky

      Apr 10, 2022

      ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe. Once again, Alice found herself in her bedroom, feeling rather mimsy indeed. Every day now, at two o’clock, she would sit at

      18 min read

    • Article

      The Parent Trap

      Mar 21, 2024

      The Parent Trap
      7 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Special

      Dec 28, 2023

      The distinctive depth of characterisation shines in this tightly knitted story of therapist Nick and retired solicitor wife Zoe, as they decide to view a deconsecrated Victorian church which is for sale. It’s “even more picturesque than it looked onl

      11 min read

    • Article

      Lezley Saar’s ‘Diorama Drama’ and me

      Apr 1, 2023

      SEPTEMBER 2017. I didn’t know where I was going to live. I’d been surviving rent-free as a “granny nanny” in Orange County, California, for three years, living on $600 under-the-table per month. The agreed-upon term was over, and I was beginning to h

      3 min read

    • Article

      Déja Vû

      Nov 6, 2023

      Déja Vû
      14 min read

    • Article

      Give Me Shelter

      Oct 30, 2019

      Give Me Shelter
      4 min read

    • Article

      This One So Loved

      May 9, 2019

      This One So Loved
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Walled Garden

      Apr 30, 2020

      The Walled Garden
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Shortest Day

      Oct 13, 2017

      The Shortest Day
      10 min read

    • Article

      Cul-de-Sac

      Dec 1, 2021

      That old rage for order: how my father drove a square mouthed mower over-and-back, over-and-back, each row of neatly trimmed grass cut just like he told his barber: boy’s short, regular. O pioneer, taming this joke bit of prairie, no bindweed or dog

      5 min read

    • Article

      What Ray Charles Says

      Mar 1, 2024

      The nighttime is the right time to be with the one you love, says Ray,but according to Hamlet, it’s when “churchyards yawn and hell itselfbreathes out contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,”says Hamlet, “and do such bitter business as

      2 min read

    • Article

      Dance with Me

      Sep 17, 2021

      Dance with Me
      9 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      May 1, 2019

      It’s something I’m not supposed to say, so I’ll say it: I have some of Sylvia Plath’s hair. In 2009, when I was doing research in the Plath archive at the Lilly Library at Indiana University, I met K., a local scholar. We became friendly. K. had been

      4 min read

    • Article

      THE ghost FILES

      Dec 23, 2019

      Karina Machado is a journalist, host of the Spirit Sisters podcast and the author of Spirit Sisters, Where Spirits Dwell and Love Never Dies, a non-fiction series exploring the extraordinary experiences of ordinary people. Now, on The Ghost Files pod

      1 min read

    • Article

      Estella’s Fate

      May 17, 2023

      Estella’s Fate
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Plain Little House

      Apr 8, 2019

      The house is real, not imaginary. But it is also a place lodged deep in the imagination, a dream place whose actual coordinates have been forgotten. In the last years of her very long life, my mother’s memory, eroded by time and general anaesthetics,

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for This Savage Song

    4/5

    984 ratings51 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Great story! Was pulled in every minute… can’t wait to read book 2!
    • 4/5
      starts of slow. But it's an enjoyable book none the less
    • 4/5
      The plot and characters were well plotted! 4.5/5
      Really enjoyed it!
    • 4/5
      This Savage Song
      by Victoria Schwab

      The monsters that created this world of monsters don't really have a lot of the spotlight on them, instead the teenage MCs Kate, human, whose dad 'controls' the monsters on his side of the city, and August, monster (but a nice guy), whose adopted dad 'kills' the monsters on his side of the city, and between the two, there's a fragile 'peace'. And guess what...

      The story first focuses on the two MCs, allowing us to get to know them, go to school with them, and discover their weaknesses, strengths, and what makes them tick, for most of the first part of the book, and then the story really takes off.

      I liked the story, easy to follow, a good amount of action, but a little too much 'life', it almost drowned out the action. And the narrator, I listened to the book through Scribd, was really good, she had some nice voice changes.

      Not too happy with how it ended, but that's why there's a second book.

      4 stars
    • 5/5
      Wow, I mean just wow ? Victoria Schwab has sung a song with this book and stole my soul....
    • 5/5
      Very scary and enjoyable, look forward to listen to the next.
    • 3/5
      I really struggled in the beginning of this book. I really enjoyed this book when more things going on. I'm ready for the next book.
    • 3/5
      parts of the audiobook are missing. but the book was overall pretty good
    • 5/5
      A wonderful book ! I loved the characters so much . Great story.
    • 4/5
      This was an interesting read. Dark but good. Kate is the daughter of a crime Lord that wants to prove herself to her father. She finally gets to stay in Verity after being kicked out of a half dozen boarding schools.
      August is a protected member of the Flynn's that only wants to prove he can work too. August is a monster that can steal a soul by playing his violin. But he only steals the evil tainted souls. He's excited to get his first real job to go to the school in Verity and get close to Kate. Soon the pair find an unlikely friendship and protect one another as a plot to destabilize Verity comes to light.
      The second half of the book is faster paced and keeps you interested.
    • 5/5
      Amazing, amazing, AMAZING. Just a brilliant book. Really truly -- just read this. You can thank me later.
    • 4/5
      This is a story about monsters. It is a dark urban fantasy which takes place in a city divided in two and beset by monsters. One side is ruled by a crime lord who sells protection from the monsters. Kate Harker is his daughter. Her father has kept her away at a series of boarding schools but she wants to come home and make her father proud of her. The other side is ruled by Henry Flynn who has established a large crew to protect his part of the city. August Flynn is one of his adopted children and one of the monsters. I this city monsters come in three kinds - corsai, malchai, and sunai. Corsai hunt in packs in indiscriminately. Malchi are sly blood drinkers. Sunai are the rarest and use song to steal souls. August is a sunai whose instrument is the violin. He doesn't want to be a monster but consoles himself with the fact that he can only rip the souls from sinners. Kate and August meet at the most recent boarding school Kate is attending. August is in disguise to meet Kate. He also wants to preserve the very fragile truce between both sides of the city. Kate and August get to know each other and, as they do, Kate starts to question who the monster really is. When they go on the run after an unsuccessful assassination attempt at school, the two need to depend on each other and keep each other safe since both sides are hunting for them.I liked the world building in this story. I liked the idea that monsters were created because of all the violent acts. I liked that August was determined not to give in to his monster side. I liked Kate despite the fact that she felt she needed to be hard and cruel in order to be accepted by her father. I am eager to find out what happens next for Kate and August and look forward to the next book about them. Fans of urban fantasy will be the perfect audience for this engaging story.
    • 5/5
      What else, Victoria Schwab - It is great - this is a cool and bad @ss book and I can so see the sequels already in my head. but before i get a head of my self. Verity is split and the monsters are ruled or rule the city? A young boy and a young girl form different sides of the tracks build a bond that even the darkest of nights and it's creatures can sever apart. . .
    • 4/5
      4 1/2 stars

      Given my current disillusionment with YA literature, I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed this one.

      I know that Victoria Schwab said that there was no romance in this book, and that was part of the reason I gave it a chance, but it seemed to me that Kate and August had potential for romance later in life. Don't get me wrong, I am tired of romance in YA books, but for some reason, the books that contain romance tend to be the ones that I think have the best relationships, and have the most potential for real romantic relationships later.

      Kate was strong, but not in the way that she portrayed herself. She acted tough, and she was strong in her own way, but she wasn't the kind of strong that she showed to the world. I found her frustrating. She was trying to be like her father, and if she had become like her father, then she would have polluted her own soul. Her type of character is one that I don't usually like, but she fit in with the world that the author had built.

      I liked August more than Kate. I liked his innocence and fear of himself. His hate of himself because he is a monster. It made him into a wonderfully, heartbreakingly tortured character. I loved his love of music, and his love and fear of his music. I liked that he was trying to protect Kate, even when she was mean to him. Even after she had killed, and he could have taken her. I didn't like the way the story ended for his character. I know that his excepting who he is was a very strong action, but I worry that he might become more like his brother, and the separation of his caution and dislike of killing (even if they were killers) from his need to kill to survive makes me nervous that he will lose some of his goodness.

      The world the story is set in is very interesting, but also very confusing. It was a very dark world, and I think that the plot would have benefitted from some humor or something to break up the dark, frightening and starkness of this place filled with monsters who are human, and monsters who exist because of the actions of humans. I loved the idea of music being the source of a power, and while I don't think of music as a killing power, people often say that it speaks to the soul, or that it feeds the soul, so I suppose it could fit that it brings the guilt, shame or sadness to the surface of their minds, and their souls to the edge of their bodies.

      I enjoyed this book a great deal, it was unique, and far better than most of the secular YA books I have read recently.
    • 5/5
      beautiful story and friendship, family and betrayal. It was so heartwarming and heart wrenching at times that I couldn’t even understand why and what I was crying for

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Really interesting premise and superb world building. I want more information about August's final transformation and why he suddenly had so much control...

      I can't wait for the sequel.
    • 3/5
      Having read Schwab’s Shades of Magic series, I was really excited to see what else she written. I didn’t enjoy these as much as I did the other books, but I think Schwab has a real knack for creating monsters.This Savage Song is a story about a world in which humans and monsters coincide, and not in harmony. The city has been split in two, with one side offering safety from the monsters in return for money and the other taking a more militaristic approach and utilizing a certain type of monster to take down the others. I really love the way Schwab details how the different monsters come in to being, how different levels of violence begat the different types of monsters.In the middle of all of this are two angsty teens who are trying to figure out who they are, fighting or embracing their own destinies. At times, the story between them feels almost Romeo and Juliet in sentiment and I wasn’t as interested in their interactions as I was other aspects of the novel. Their relationship felt too familiar.
    • 4/5
      I actually enjoyed this book more than A Darker Shade of Magic. It could be because this one is YA or it could be because I listened to A Darker Shade of Magic rather than physically reading it. I'm not sure which, but I do know that plan on reading Our Dark Duet as soon as I have a chance.

      The Town of Verity is split in two. Kate wants to be just as ruthless as her father who has control over monsters and over his half of the city. August is a monster that wants nothing more than to just be human. They really shouldn't be friends, but then things cause them to work together.
    • 4/5
      In the future, America has fractured into territories, named after character traits, and values, such irony. Monsters exist in the real world, in cities and towns, brought forth by violent crime. V-City is the setting of our story, and is divided in two, each side run by a different family. The Harker side keeps its own monsters branded, and people pay for protection. The Flynn side fights monsters and patrols the streets to keep crime in check.

      Kate Harker has finally come home after getting kicked out of her fifth boarding school; the daughter of the Boss, she just wants to prove herself to her father and be a family again. August Flynn goes undercover at the same school as Kate, to keep an eye on her and get information. August is not a true son, because he is a Sounai, a monster who feeds on souls of the wicked, but he just wants to be human.

      So this sounds like a Romeo and Juliet set up doesn’t it? But there is no romance, and Kate and August are enemies., at least at first. It's a series starter that I like very much. I’m curious to see how this plot plays out. The ending is satisfactory but the epilogue sets up the next book nicely.
    • 3/5
      Series Info/Source: I borrowed this audiobook through Audible Plus. This is the first book in the Monsters of Verity duology.Story (3/5): This was fine but definitely didn't blow me away. The concept is interesting, people create real actual monsters with their evil acts and this has led (somewhat) to the collapse of society. However, I have a huge issue that the history and concept are never well explained and filled out. The whole “monsters being created” thing sounded really cool, except for then it wasn't. There are only three types of monsters and they are all very typical; you didn't get much explanation for why there are only three types and why they formed as one of those three types. I expected a lot more creativity around this and a lot more variety. In the end it was more of just two factions in the city duking it out for control of the city's people. Characters (3/5): This is a very character driven novel but I never really liked the characters much. They don't have a lot of depth and don't really grow or change over the course of the story. Setting (3/5): The city of Verity should be really awesome with its divided layout and monstrous inhabitants. However, the setting was never well built out and just seemed like any other city with maybe a few more creepy people/monsters around. You do hear a bit about cities outside of Verity but in general the setting and world-building here are pretty thin. Writing Style (3/5): The book is decently written but in the end I found the whole thing fairly pedestrian. I didn't absolutely hate it but I won't be continuing with the series. The world-building is okay, the characters aren’t all that likable, and things weren’t very well built out. In general Scwab has been very hit or miss for me. I really love her Cassidy Blake series but thought “Vicious” was only so-so. I have not read her Shades of Magic series yet.My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay but not great. Unfortunately for this book I read it in between a lot of other really amazing novels. Everything about this felt a bit weak to me...the world, the characters, the story. I don’t plan on finishing up this duology.
    • 3/5
      Didn't really work for me. The worldbuilding was intriguing but ultimately not deep enough - it doesn't hold together when you think about it. And it's a pretty depressing world that she's created. Not really one I wanted to spend a lot of time with.
    • 3/5
      Well, that was quick.

      What started out confusing quickly became more and more clear. An easy read, not entirely unpredictable but a bunch of fun.

      And monsters, what's not to love?
    • 2/5
      Clearly, I did not really like this book.

      It's sort of disappointing. I'd previously read three of V.E. Schwab's books (Vicious and the first two parts of her Shades of Magic trilogy), and thought they were uniformly great. As for this one… not so much. To be clear: I started reading this book in late 2016. I found it so boring, and dreaded reading it so much, that I didn't open my Kindle again for over a year. Once I did, I didn't remember anything about the story and had to start again. I still didn't find it interesting. In the end I only pushed through because I wanted to move on to other books. I didn't hate it, though. It even picked up in the second half. I just didn't like it very much.

      So, what do we have in this book? We have our protagonists: Kate Harker, a teenage delinquent who deep down inside only wants the love of her dad. We have August Flynn, a member of a supernatural "species" called the Sunai. (I did like the concept and execution of the Sunai.) We have our setting, a city divided in two, one half run by Kate's ruthless dad, the other by August's not-so-ruthless family. Then there's a bunch of monsters, who up till now have apparently been under control… but they're getting restless.

      So, here lies the problem: none of this really grabbed me. Perhaps I was spoilt by the depth and intrigue of the four Londons, but this city… it didn't seem well fleshed-out. The Sunai were good, but the other two monster species – the Malchai and the Corsai – made no real impression on me; I'm not even sure what the difference was between them. Kate didn't seem much more but an archetypal "rebel girl with daddy issues", while August had what you could fairly describe as a subtle personality.

      As I say, the book wasn't all terrible. Despite the dullness of every school scene (one of them was literally just a geography class where the teacher gave a whole bunch of exposition about the city's surrounds… which I immediately forgot and never needed), there were some good moments of conflict in the second half of the novel. Kate's arc was satisfying. I don't know if I could be bothered ever reading the sequel, but it had its good points. I just wouldn't have read it in the first place, if I had the choice to do it again.
    • 5/5
      It was a cruel trick of the universe, thought August, that he felt human only after doing something monstrous.

      This Savage Song is pretty much just one big stew of two of my favorite themes/tropes: humans can be the biggest monsters and real monsters aren't always what they seem. So I loved this.

      The "Sin City Romeo/Juliet - romance" (PAY ATTN TO THE "MINUS ROMANCE" part of that) author pitch is spot-on, and I got so many other vibes from this book, even if they're not really similar to what this is about. Blade Runner, 30 Days of Night (definitely how I pictured the Malchai -- also like those things from Deadbirds but *shiver* anyways), From Dusk til Dawn, and even Mad Max (maybe all the silver teeth and metallic nails, etc plus the Waste).

      I love great world-building, especially when it involves interesting monsters and Schwab's Malchai, Sunai, and Corsai are so awwwwwwwesome and each terrifying in their own ways. I got chills every time Kate queued up footage of a monster. I was sooooo weirdly drawn to Leo's character (not in a positive way but in a very ambiguous "oh no" way) and it annoys and terrifies me since he's terrible and ends up being truly terrible, but the footage of him reaping that room of people was HAUNTING. *lies down to cry or stare at a wall or something*

      The relationships are what really make this book. Kate's relationship with her father, the dynamics of the Flynn household (2 humans, 3 monsters of varying monstrousness), Kate and August's not-quite-friendship-but-ultimately-kinda-trusting-team-up, etc etc. Ilsa and August's scenes will stick with me for a while.

      Basically: a must-read action-packed, gruesome, gritty, haunting YA/adult crossover neo-noir.
    • 5/5
      Wow. The monsters are vicious and unrelentingly frightful. I definitely recommend this book to the dark and twisted reader that can visually bring about the dark and unhanded world VE Schwann has created here. Loved it !!
    • 5/5
      "It hurts," he whispered.
      "What does?" asked Kate.
      "Being. Not being. Giving in. Holding out. No matter what I do, it hurts."
      Kate tipped her head back against the tub. "That's life, August," she said. "You wanted to feel alive, right? It doesn't matter if you're monster or human. Living hurts."
      😦👌❤

      The Writing and Worldbuilding

      It's really no surprise I loved this, given that it's written by my Queen, Victoria Schwab. Reading the blurb, I wasn't totally sure how this book was going to play out, what kind of a world this was set it, but reading the book, I understood everything about it perfectly. It honestly reminded me of another favorite book of mine, Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion with its tough, hardcore heroine and not-really-human-but-trying male protagonist. But whereas Warm Bodies was a romance, this was a fantastic friendship, and that was awfully refreshing (though don't get me wrong—I ship Kate and August so hard, though I don't think he even has a sex drive, soo...)

      I loved how the book was split into parts of a composition—it really added to the symbolism and was just super unique.

      The world made me think of the Pied Piper with a paranormal apocalypse twist. It was so cool and unique and I absolutely loved everything about it.

      My only problem was that some of the characters felt like copies from her previous books, namely her adult ones under V.E. Schwab. Maybe she wanted similar characters for her Young Adult readers? Maybe she just isn't as versatile as I thought? They're not bad characters, and they definitely aren't unoriginal, but I've read them from her before, and I wanted to see all of her possibilities. (I'll go into specifics of which characters reminded me of who in spoiler tags in the character section below.)

      The Characters

      Kate Harker: I really liked Kate. She was so tough but also realistically vulnerable, and her wit and quick thinking were great. However, she reminded me too much of Lila Bard from the Shades of Magic series. Particularly the fact that, like Lila, she has one of a set of two sensory features out of operation due to some injury—her ear for Kate and her eye for Lila. This isn't a problem at all, but it was something I noticed.

      August Flynn: He was my absolute favorite. He's my smol cinnamon roll and I love him and his cat. I really loved his perspective and the slight difference in structure his thoughts brought, having that kind of ADHD feel. I really loved his struggle to feel human and to understand his place in the world. He was definitely the most unique character in this.

      Leo: He was interesting and I really liked his darker moments. While I understand what it brought to the symbolism of the story, I found him to be way too similar to Eli from Vicious, particularly relating to his religious idealism.

      Callum Harker: He was very interesting, and gave me The Walking Dead villain vibes (though I haven't actually ever watched TWD lol).

      Sloan: He was pretty creepy.

      Conclusion

      Overall, I found this to be a gripping and fast read that enthralled and enchanted me. I'm sad it's just a duology because this world is epic and I absolutely love it.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this one but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I love the Darker Shade of Magic series so I had very high hopes for this one. I think I was unfairly expecting an adult novel but obviously this is YA. I still very much enjoyed the story and the unique plot. I will definitely continue the series.
    • 4/5
      Having very much enjoyed Shades of Magic by Ms Schwab I bought this.I enjoyed this too although it is YA and quite short, lacking the detail that Shades had. It took me a few chapters to understand the set up of the world, the different monsters and who was fighting who. The two main characters are interesting in different ways and although certain "twists" are obvious I will be getting the 2nd book soon.
    • 4/5
      A promising start to the series. Characters were not as vivid as her other books but I'm intrigued.
    • 4/5
      This post-apocalytic duology takes place in a re-constituted America after a period of national unrest, a strained economy, and political anarchy. Twelve years before the start of the story, a fundamental change in nature caused violence to start taking actual shape. Specifically, monsters were created out of all the murders being committed. At first, there were only three types:Corsai came from violent, but nonlethal acts, and they fed on flesh and boneMalchai came from murders, and fed on bloodSunai came from mass killings, and fed on life-forces of sinners, the auras of their souls. As far as anyone knows, there are only three Sunai in existence, and they live with Henry Flynn, who is the head of the southern portion of V-City, capital of Verity. He is trying, along with his Sunai, to keep at bay the bad people and the monsters they create.The North is run by Callum Harker, an autocrat who extracts money from his people in return for protection. He also employs torture to instill fear and obedience, with the help of his favorite Malchai, Sloan. His 17-year-old daughter Kate knew her father was a bad man, but thought he was what the city needed: “Good and bad were weak words. Monsters didn’t care about intentions or ideals. The facts were simple. The South was chaos. The North was order. It was an order bought and paid for with blood and fear, but order all the same.”Even though Kate was contemptuous of Flynn for being a quixotic idealist, she comes to admire his “son,” the Sunai August, who is 16. (He was created four years earlier after a mass shooting at a middle school.) Kate and August improbably become friends when they end up at the same high school. Kate is drawn to August because he wasn’t fake like the other students, and because he clearly didn’t belong in a way she couldn’t identify; all she knew was that she didn’t belong either. Ironically, Kate wants to be more like a monster so her father will accept her, and August wants to be more human like his father, because he has a moral code. He spends most of his time afraid: “Afraid of what he was, afraid of what he wasn’t, afraid of unraveling, becoming something, else, becoming nothing.”And in fact, the Sunai can become something fearsome. Sunai “go dark” if they stop feeding on souls: “They lose the ability to tell the difference between good and bad, monster and human. They just kill. They kill everyone.” It happened to August twice before Kate met him. Now he has stopped eating because he doesn’t want to feel like a monster. But he also is afraid that eventually he will lose control from hunger and go dark. Kate understands when he confesses to her: “He was just someone who wanted to be something else, something he wasn’t. Kate understood the feeling.”They grow close, and August and Kate run off to the Waste, the dangerous no-man’s land outside of the city limits. They go to Kate’s old house, but they are tracked down. Kate kills someone who tries to break in, and even though she did it in self defense, she now has the telltale red-colored life-force of a sinner. August’s “sister,” the Sunai Ilsa, helps them escape. The two are captured by Sloan, who brags that he killed Ilsa. The third Sunai, Leo, tries to kill Sloan, and August, Kate, and Leo get away.But then August, weak and starving, goes dark, and all of their lives change.Evaluation: Schwab is a skillful weaver of tales, and knows how to incorporate magic into them without the magic seeming fatuous. In the case of both Kate and of August, you can see how their backgrounds helped define them, for good or for ill. The identity struggles of both Kate and August are so unusual, and so heartbreaking. At one point, sitting on the roof of the compound, they are looking up at the stars:"'I read somewhere,' said Kate, "'that people are made of stardust.'He dragged his eyes from the sky. 'Really?''Maybe that's what you're made of. Just like us.'" I look forward to the sequel.