Four entirely separate Londons, identified by color due to their varying degrees of magic; one member of a royal family who can’t help his compulsive urge to smuggle tokens from one world to the next, or add to his own personal collection… not such a great combo to start.
“There are four worlds. Think of them as different houses built on the same foundation. They have little in common, save for their geography, and the fact that each has a version of this city, straddling this river on this island country, and in each, that city is called London.”
Add a chance encounter with a wanted male pickpocket (who just happens to be a street-savvy female), and you have a recipe for disaster. Magical, crazy disaster.
Why is this on our bookshelf?
V.E. Schwab is already an accomplished YA author, and her first adult fiction novel “Vicious” was on the Publisher’s Weekly and Amazon’s Best Books of 2013 list.
Rating (4 stars)
I was impressed at how the book hit the ground running, and you felt you were entering a world that’s been already established, rather than a brand new one. The downside to that is some of the plot lines are old favorites. This isn’t to say that there aren’t a fair number of surprises, but if you’re paying very close attention, even they’re foreshadowed just enough that you might be able to piece them together before their reveal.
Read this book:
If you enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and The Lies of Locke Lamora. The feel of the world and characters are very similar.
Don't Read this book:
If you think London is bad enough, not to mention four Londons.
Once you're done, do this:
Pretend there are three alternative versions of your city. Imagine what they might be like, and see if you can find tokens in our world that might be used to represent the other cities, and would allow travel from one to another.
