This Savage Song

Book Title: This Savage Song

Author: V.E. Schwab
Series: Monsters of Verity #1

Date Started: June 19th 2016

Date Completed: July 21st 2016

Genres: Dystopian, Thriller, Fantasy
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

I haven't related to a book on a personal level like I did with This Savage Song for a long time. Don't get me wrong, this novel is fantastic regardless, but as an individual who follows Victoria's work closely and has personal mental health conditions this book struck me very hard. And I think it's a very good way to explore mental health without people necessarily knowing it.

This Savage Song, whether it was deliberate or subconscious, has quite frankly staggering parallels to mental health, in both the monsters themselves and the experiences of the characters. Not only am I so happy to see this sort of thing being explored in such a creative way, but I'm also hopeful for what this meant for the author, as well as myself. Victoria is someone who I greatly look up to for countless reasons, but one of which being in how she struggles with some of the things paralleled in her novel: when reading I saw echoes of depression, anxiety, panic attacks. Maybe, once I'd noticed the first few, my own mind starting picking them out for me, but even so seeing those elements there was somehow a comfort - the experiences and feelings being portrayed aren't fun, but it helped me, honestly. However, past the impact this has on me personally, I think it's also a really interesting exploration of mental health in a creative and innovative way - I haven't really seen anyone else talk about this book in terms of mental health, and perhaps I am drawing conclusions from poetic license, but I'd be interested to see what other people thought on its parallels.

A genre that I really don't see that much in the literature I read, but really really love, is old fashioned gangster style crime. Admittedly, This Savage Song isn't really a gangster book, but you gotta love a good old gangster setting, even if it does have a little dystopian twist. And no, it isn't even the main sort of landscape we're in for a lot of the story, but it really does give this book that extra edge. I'm all for corrupt governments in dystopians, but it's rare that I feel the threat these examples of authority pose - but I felt it in Verity. A lot of that's to do with the gradual but clear world building intertwined as part of the story as well as exposition, and part of that's just Victoria Schwab being her usual talented self.

There are some really nice moments in this book that made me gasp; in fact there were points when I found myself genuinely grinning, laughing or staring wide eyed at the page. Some parts might have felt a little more predictable than what I'm used to from Victoria, but there were definitely parts I didn't see coming as well. Overall it's definitely a character story: you invest in the people and they carry things through - if I were to brutally scrutinise it, there was maybe a slight lack of Schwab's usual flair. But even so, I adored every second of this book, and the storyline and climax hold up well for any angle.

I love Schwab's male/female relationships that don't need romance to be intimate. There might always be a hint of something in the future, but in all her books I've found very close friendships and familial relationships that don't require a directly romantic edge to fuel them. First of all, it's a breath of fresh air from what we're constantly being bombarded with in most other examples - but it also does a brilliant job of showing how great it is to have characters stand on their own as powerful individuals. They feel more real, more investable, and like there's further they can go because they haven't had their fate decided for them just yet.

Kate kicked ass. It was pretty cool. She's definitely a flawed and unfriendly hero at times, but again, it's so nice to have a complex protagonist making the wrong decisions and actually paying the consequences. And Kate most certainly pays the consequences.

And in many ways August seems like her polar opposite: he wants to avoid making the wrong decisions to the point where he's scared to do a lot of things at all. Again, a very complex protagonist, but in very different ways. I think it takes a very talented author to be able to write such complicated and conflicting characters, and have their problems and their salvations seem similar to a reader. By the end I just wanted to give him hug, honestly.

Just personally, I'm not a huge fan of school settings, so the first half of this book felt a little bit slow for me at times. There were definitely elements I enjoyed, but it was noticeably slower than what I was used to from Schwab - again, I don't think this was the book, just my personal preference. However, once we got to the middle I could barely put it down. I had to keep reading, I had to know what happened, but at the same time I really didn't want it to be over.

This Savage Song isn't Victoria's most sophisticated book in terms of story line, but her connections (whether deliberate or otherwise) to mental health had a real significance to me, and regardless this book is packed full of action, dystopian adventure thrills. While working as its own story very well, I'm sure it'll expand in the next books, and I'm sure two certain people will find their paths cross again, as always seems to be the case with Victoria's stories.

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