Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity, 2)

Our Dark Duet picks up several months later after the events of the first book, This Savage Song. While the first book explored the taut levels of human nature and what it means to be human, Our Dark Duet seems to be a reckoning of sorts. It very much deals with consequences of one's actions and how a person must deal with those consequences. Kate and August have been irrevocably changed on a fundamental level, the latter changing the most. August consumes himself with his vile duty to Verity--- the reaping of souls of those who've committed heinous acts of violence. As August immerses himself in his deadly deeds, we find that Kate has joined a small group of people who's mission is to help keep the monster population low by fighting and killing them---Kate being their leader and executioner.

The beginning of the book is bogged down with a lot of introversion. August's thoughts are dark and critical of himself. He struggles with doing his duty to Verity because he feels his actions are wrong. His dead brother's voice plagues his thoughts, haunting him at every turn. Kate deals with her own mental endeavors, fighting both inner and outer demons. Kate is battling the loneliness she's feeling now that she's left Verity, August, and everything else behind. Like August, she hunts monsters to combat the inner turmoil going on in her head. Everything seems to fit the status quo at the beginning.

A new monster comes to town. One no one, monster and human alike have ever seen before.

"The air smelled like blood and panic as she forced herself toward the restaurant, toward the massacre, toward the chaos. And there, in the middle of it all, so still she almost didn’t see it, stood a monster."

This monster goes beyond the realm of what monsters have been capable of before. It's not a Corsai, Malchai, nor is it a Sunai. It's something else entirely. Worse, it seems to be connected to Kate in a way that put both her life and those she loves in danger. Kate, ever so determined to track it down finds herself on a one way track back to the place that she both reviles and loves---Verity.

Schwab introduces some new characters that create an interesting dynamic to the story. Alice is a monster created by the violent act Kate committed in book one. For spoiler purposes, I won't reveal what. Alice teams up with Sloan, in order to hunt down Kate and kill her. Like Sloan, Alice has very sadistic tendencies and loves to play mind games with her prey. Sloan loves to keep Alice around because she resembles Kate. He's become obsessed with finding Kate and he will stop at nothing until he finds her. Alice takes great liberties when it comes to following Sloan's commands, and we see that their relationship is tenuous at best. Sloan often is forced to tighten his leash on his new minion Alice, because she loves to do things her way. She has a taste for human blood that is insatiable, which brings unwanted attention to Sloan and his operation. In addition to Alice, Schwab introduces us to another unique character that goes by the name of Soro. He's written to be genderless which I found fascinating and very progressive on Schwab's end. It's always refreshing to see an author push the envelope and test those boundaries. 

Victoria Schwab compacts her fast-moving plot masterfully with issues about morality, identity, and judgement for one's own actions. The quote that encompasses the themes of this sequel, which is also my favorite quote is, 

"People were messy. They were defined not only by what they’d done, but by what they would have done, under different circumstances, molded as much by their regrets as their actions, choices they stood by and those they wished they could undo. Of course, there was no going back—time only moved forward—but people could change. For worse. And for better."

Kate and August contend with their past actions and they see how those actions generate dark consequences. Schwab takes her readers on a journey and the latter half of the book is one you DO NOT want to miss. Victoria Schwab broke me to pieces with the ending to this duology. I believe she's evil and secretly writes with the sole purposes of torturing her readers. I still haven't recovered, as I'm sure you won't either. Be sure to pick up This Savage Song as well as Our Dark Duet for one emotionally dark ride.

In 2016 I devoured This Savage Song. I loved it. SO MUCH. It was such a refreshing book. There was no romance to drive the plot. There was no pointless bullcrap. It was just a fricken fantastic book. I have really loved every book I have read by Victoria Schwab but... after reading this one, I realized I do have a problem with her writing and I will explain that at the end of the review.

In This Savage Song we left off with Henry and Kate parting ways. Kate ended up going to Prosperity(don't you just love these town names?) in search of a new beginning. It was rumored that Prosperity was not touched by monsters. And, while it definitely didn't have the infestation problem that Verity has, that was proven to be false. Kate ends up working with a small group of people as their personal monster killer. But then, something new pops up and that sends Kate running back to her home in order to warn the one person she still loved and cared for. August...

August was no longer August. Killing his brother and seeing everything he saw in This Savage Song changed him. And not for the better. He decided to completely undergo a transformation. He turned into the monster Verity needed to defeat the Corsai and the Malachai. Her turned into... Leo.

So August is now the leader of a military squad with his fancy new violin. He wields his newfound inability to care, like a deadly weapon. And that is exactly what he has become. That is until Kate comes back. Everyone is weary of Kate but August trusts her wholeheartedly and that trust is what ended up saving a lot of people in the end of the book.

There truly isn't much else I can say without it being a massive spoiler but lets just say Kate's past comes back to bite her in the ass, in more than on form. Someone that she thought was dead ends up not being so dead and Kate has to figure out how to eliminate all of these threats to the world.

I really want to know what happened with the whole Henry situation. I really don't think August could put up with Henry, as well. There was so much loss in this book. I just keep thinking that some of this never would have happened if Kate wouldn't have pulled that trigger in the last book.

I gave the book a full star rating because I truly do love Victoria Schwab's writing. However, I have found a flaw, at least for me, with her books. I never feel satisfied with how the books/series end. I felt VERY unfinished with the The Archived books and that is exactly how I felt when Our Dark Duet finished. I want more. I can't fault the author for that because I knew Our Dark Duet was the final book but I still feel so unsatisfied with the ending. But I also know it is the end because there is no coming back from what happened. So I will sit here and silently wish for more books that won't happen and sulk and pity myself.

In the end, I was heartbroken. I still am. I cannot believe it's over. If anyone needs me, don't.

Overall, I gave the book 5/5 stars.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars Title: Our Dark Duet Author: Victoria Schwab

Synopsis: Kate Harker is a girl who isn’t afraid of the dark. She’s a girl who hunts monsters. And she’s good at it. August Flynn is a monster who can never be human. No matter how much he once yearned for it. He has a part to play. And he will play it, no matter the cost. Nearly six months after Kate and August were first thrown together, the war between the monsters and the humans is a terrifying reality. In Verity, August has become the leader he never wished to be, and in Prosperity, Kate has become the ruthless hunter she knew she could be. When a new monster emerges from the shadows—one who feeds on chaos and brings out its victim’s inner demons—it lures Kate home, where she finds more than she bargained for. She’ll face a monster she thought she killed, a boy she thought she knew, and a demon all her own. Initial thoughts: After reading the first book in this series, I hurried and picked up a copy of the second book. I was really excited to see how Verity was going to hold up after everything that had happened and the cliffhanger that was left at the end of book 1. I was also very excited to see how the characters had changed after six months. The cover of the book is stunning (I love both the US and UK versions so of course I had to get a copy of both). Again this series really pulled me because of the author as well as the concept and now the concept had changed to the monsters within our own heads and I loved the change.

Plot: What I liked: The characters were really dynamic and there was a lot of action throughout the entire book. I really liked how every time the new monster (the Chaos Eater) came into play, the style of writing changed to that of a free verse poem. The execution of the work was well played and worked hand in hand with what we had learned in the previous book. I still love the dynamic between Kate and August, and the questions that came along with them. The instruments were weapons and that was so cool, but it made me wonder how much more difficult it would be to actually play them after battling monsters all day.

What I didn't like: Something that I wish Victoria would have done with this book was explain more about the actual phenomena that caused monsters to be created in Verity and not in other regions of the world. I also found myself rereading the same phrases over and over again. I feel like this was done for a stylistic effect, but it still had me feeling as though I had read the lines more than once.

Characters: Kate Harker: Still a kick butt girl who has a very strong will and was able to fight back against her own human urges to keep moving. August Flynn: This kid needed a break, but never wanted to take one. He was very conflicted through the entire book until Kate showed up. Ilsa Flynn: I love her to death and I just wanted to see her happy throughout the entire book after everything that happened from the last book. Soro Flynn: They made me want to cosplay them so badly. Seriously I am getting my flute together and I am going to do this. But in all seriousness, I really enjoyed Soro’s character. They were a lot like Leo, but they were more willing to listen and work with others. Alpha Team: Even after being pushed away by August they were very supportive and a good team. Alice: I loved her. She was a fantastic villain and I thought it was interesting in the way that she worked a lot like Kate, but wasn’t her at the same time. Sloan: Still thought he was very cunning and calculating much like in the first book. I loved being able to read things more from his POV.

Overall: I would highly recommend this series to just about everyone who is over the age of 15. It is a little darker for younger audiences and has its fair share of violence and gore in it. I did lower my rating on this book though due to the fact that there were some plot holes from both books that hadn’t been addressed, but if Victoria ever wanted to write a third book for this series focusing on my two favorite Sunai I wouldn’t complain at all.

I have, so far, loved every one if Victoria Schwab's novels. But I might love the Monsters of Verity series the most. Schwab is an incredibly talented writer and an amazing storyteller which combined creates an author to treasure. I marvel at the worlds she builds and the complicated and dynamic characters she populates them with. Still I've never been as emotionally invested in any characters as I was with August and Kate.

This book is obviously the sequel and finale to the Verity series and it was, in a word, perfection. I definitely wish I could see this one as a movie. Not just because the action and intensity would translate that well to film (but it would) but also for those who wouldn't for whatever reason pick up this book or don't have time to read, a film would allow this tale to be shared with a broader audience and I believe it deserves that.

Now to take a break from blubbering over how in love I am with this story, a few words about the actual plot: the sequel takes place 6 months after Kate and August part ways. The traumatic events that concluded the first novel has changed them both, for better and worse and they have both grown up and grown harder. Naturally there is unfinished business that must be addressed as the first book suggested in the form of Sloan and Alice... but there is also a new terrifying monster to deal with and hunt. And just like the first novel, the specter of war and destruction looms over Verity. Again as hinted by the first book, through Kate, we get to read about a new city, Prosperity, which, on surface, seems to be the antithesis of Verity - safe and "normal" - but as usual, our hero Kate can always suss out a rotting core.

Kate's adventures lead her to return to Verity where she reunites with August and they both attempt to resolve the new trouble together as well as the dangers that still stalk the night from their past.

Schwab pulls no punches when writing about violence and death so if you're squeamish you should avoid this book. We get to meet a new Sunai in this novel which is interesting and fascinating. Overall, themes ubiquitous to this sequel revolve around: (1) questions about how humanity can secure a future paved with hard decisions in a post apocalyptic world (2) contemplating morality, particularly sin and forgiveness, choices and change and (3) do the benefits outweigh the cost of being more human, or more monster?

I'm sad this series is over, but it ended with both beauty and pain and hope. And like the title of this review implies, I totally cried, but this story is worth it.

This is the sequel to this savage song by Victoria Schwab, so if you have not read it yet i suggest you click off this review or you will be spoiled for the first book.

You have your two main characters August and Kate. Kate as been gone from Verity for the last six months until a mystery monster comes out to play. This monster is later called the Chaos Eater, it feeds off violence and can make humans turn against each other. The monster manages to get a link inside of Kate’s head and so she tracks it back to Verity. Where she is reunited to August and the Flynn family. They are soon thrown back in to the monsters and forced to hunt the Chaos Eater and Kate’s own monster down.

They also have to hunt down sloan, who has somehow managed to survive. He now has all the monsters in the city working for him, including Kate’s monster. They are both hell bent on killing Kate and ruling over the hole city. Interestingly enough, you do get to read a handful of chapters from Sloan’s point of view. The first book you didn’t really get the monsters point of view, it was really amazing to get to see the world from their angle.

The writing is fantastic in this book, it had me hooked through every chapter. You think you have the book figured out then BOOM, another twist. I constantly thought I could predict where the book was going, but I didn’t. The words were so descriptive and you could easily imagine the compound, the buildings in North City, The waste.

I was heart broken at the ending, I cried. It was such a great ending though to a fabulous, well-written series. This is a duology, so I’m not sure whether or not Victoria will write a novella or a third book in the series. If she doesn’t the second book did a great wrap up to the series and had a great, but sad ending.

"the whole city a book of matches just waiting to be struck"

3.5 STARS

TW: death (including death of a loved one), gore, suicide, violence (including gun violence), smoking

The first word that comes to mind thinking about Our Dark Duet is "devastating." At the Columbus stop of her tour for The Near Witch, V mentioned that her editor wanted the ending to be just that: devastating, or else it wouldn't pay off, wouldn't work.

And I think she pulled it off.

Funny to say that, looking at the rating. 3.5 isn't bad at all, but anything around a middling range rating is such a weird review to write. What it comes down to this time, though, is that the first half of the book was disappointing, and the second half amped up in time to require a road map for navigating the emotional damage it left in its wake. Devastating is an excellent word for it, truly.

But I'll get that first half out of the way first. What it boils down to here is that ODD is set six months after the end of TSS, and August and Kate have gone their separate ways. That alone is what brought the first half down for me, because the thing I took the greatest joy in was their interactions, the way they were shaping themselves into something new around one another. I loved that they liked to tease and joke together, and that there wasn't a romance between them. I love that they each saw what the other wanted, and they each wanted the other to stay safe in getting it. TSS was a hit for me because of these two, and seeing them fall into their old ways while apart made the first half drag.

The second half, though, while lacking a little in plot (I just found it a bit rushed and loose, crammed into the duology and fleshed out a little too late), returned to the character-focused style of the first book. We get to see more of Kate and August questioning their choices, and making new ones with consequences beyond just their own lives. The stakes raise higher and higher in the later part of ODD, and the losses are enormous. To be expected, honestly, since it's a miracle that anyone survives in a city where ravenous monsters prowl every corner, and protection is bought rather than freely given.

And the tension of parallels returned, too! That was what most interested me. A new monster reared its head, opposite in so many ways to August and his Sunai brethren, terrifying as a result. It was almost everything Kate once teetered on the edge of trying to become, an equally unsettling prospect, and it was certainly a question given shape: who are the real monsters after all?

And in addition to the monster, we see August revisit the figures that have shaped him, as well as ones he wanted to avoid being shaped by. And we see Kate confront the darkest parts of herself given form. It's a story about mirrors, in a sense, about reflection, and about how to deal with the parts of our reflections that disgust us or make us afraid.

On top of this wonderful return to questions of character, V did two more things that I really loved. For starters, there were snippets of verse, artfully placed within the novel. Turns out she has a poetry background, and she's put it to work well here, giving beautiful form to the words of a monstrous thing, another glorious tension.

She's also included queer characters in this book! Less than ten pages in, we learn a side character is queer (he has a boyfriend, and yes, they both survive), and later on, a prominent nonbinary character comes into play, taking their place as a relatively key secondary character whom I would ABSOLUTELY read more about, since they have some growing to do yet that would be fascinating to see. It's a grim world, but it's nice to see queer characters carving out their mark all the same. I certainly wish they were more central, sure, but it's nice to have them (and to have them alive and with agency) all the same.

Overall, Our Dark Duet was fantastic. It truly was. It just took a little too long to get to that point, to reach the conclusion it was turning toward, and that caused me enough frustration to lower the rating, as did a couple of loose ends (I have my theories about where the monster originated, for one, but it's not really even hinted at, which I think could have been a powerful hint, one that created closure). But on the whole, it was worth the read, and the heartache that it became. I'd absolutely read it again, even if the first half is slower than I'd like. I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I confess I’m turning into a bit of a Schwab groupie. The worlds and characters she creates become a haunting part of me. First the London’s, now Verity - and even Prosperity.

By the end of Savage Song, I knew Kate would reveal herself as the unwavering heroine of the story. But I did not expect the journey she would be forced to take. My heart ached with hers and I felt all her confusion and frustration.

And August, who is the personification of the maddening process of self-actualization: “Leo telling him to be the thing the monsters feared, and Soro who made him feel selfish for wanting to be human, and Ilsa, who made him feel like a monster for not wanting it enough, and Henry who seemed to think he could be everything to every, and Kate, who wanted him to be someone he couldn’t be anymore.”

I loved these books and, as Schwab admits, I knew there could be no truly happy ending. The ending is messy, as it must be in this world. My mind will wonder about the future of Verity, about The Wardens, about all those messages Kate never got to send.

The one “structural“ criticism of the book is the format of th Chaos Eater’s song. I suppose I understand why Schwab approached it this way, but I found it jarring and found myself just skimming past it.

These books were a tremendous read - making me contemplate heavy ideas while wrapping me up in a fast-paced, gripping plot. Another Schwab success.

Also, I really love Allegro.

This book is compared to Romeo and Juliet with monsters so I wasn’t really expecting a happily ever after, I mean we all remember what happened to them. That said though I remarkably liked where the ending took this book.

August and Kate are two beings that shouldn’t work together but they do. August’s entire life was about judging those with sins. But, what if you got to know one of the sinners, what is you started to love them? August isn’t sure what to do when one of the sinners is a girl who saved his life and one that fights monsters just like him.

***“People were messy. They were defined not only by what they'd done, but by what they would have done, under different circumstances, molded as much by their regrets as their actions, choices they stood by and those they wished they could undo. Of course, there was no going back - time only moved forward - but people could change. For worse. And for better. ***

Kate overall has a good heart. She hides it well but even after leaving Verity she hunted Monsters. She tries to make up for the mistake of her past that tainted her soul and left a monster of her very own making. After months outside of Verity it is time to go back because she has seen the new monster, it is worse than anything before it.

I like Kate, how she fights for what she believes in, how she takes the hard road. She isn’t afraid to look at who she is and examine it. The story picked up a lot for me once she and August are back together trying to figure out how to save the city once again from the things that go bump in the night. August needs a little saving from himself too and Kate is just the girl to give it to him straight.

***“I don’t know who I am, and who I’m not, I don’t know who I’m supposed to be, and I miss who I was; I miss it every day, Kate, but there’s no place for that August anymore. No place for the version of me who wanted to go to school, and have a life, and feel human, because this world doesn’t need that August. It needs someone else.” ***

There relationship is not just about lust or attraction but a deep understanding of the other. I love the way August looks out for Kate and vice versa.

Ilsa….oh Ilsa. The sister with a scattered mind that sees the future and is helpless to stop it. I really love her character and how she is a monster but at the same time she is a fragile girl locked into visions of what could be coming. Her story breaks my heart more than a little.

Overall, I liked the first book just a little bit more. But this is still full of the fantastic musings and beautiful prose in such and ugly place. The ending still left me with hope in a strange way and I will always think of Kate and August together in the end.

***“I know it hurts," she said. "So make it worth the pain.” ***

Picking up my next unfinished duology, I turned to Victoria Schwab’s Our Dark Duet which brings a conclusion to the Monsters of Verity duology. It had been awhile since I read This Savage Song, but luckily I found a summary for THAT! Diving back into the series was still a bit hard, but manageable.

When we start we join Kate in Prosperity, having left Verity behind, and somehow finds herself working with a group of monster hunters, for monsters are everywhere in this world. Though one chance encounter with a monster leaves Kate shaken, this monster was different from the usual sort and as you can imagine will be a feat of impossibility to defeat.

Eventually, we pop back in on August who’s still in Verity acting as a sort of police force trying to keep some semblance of order and justice in the city that is being run rampant with monsters.

Then of course, as teased at the end of This Savage Song, we see that Sloan is still alive and well, and there’s a new monster in town, one who just rose and looks like Kate in a lot of ways and goes by the name of Alice. Apparently whatever theories I had developed about this were grossly incorrect as I seemed to have forgotten the tidbit about how new monsters are created! Lol. It seems these two have decided to join together because of shared common enemy.

I remember reading reviews saying that it took a while for Kate and August to reunite, and it does. Over a 100+ pages into the story, it almost makes those pages feel like an overly drawn out prologue especially since Kate was in Prosperity all that time. Already, I felt like I was getting off to a bad start with this one since the pace was slow. I understood the need for the slower pacing, there was a lot that had to be built up, but at the same time, I had hoped for something more along the way to these bigger events.

One thing that I did miss that I felt like wasn’t as present in this one was the relationship between Kate and August. They had that sort of reluctant budding friendship that danced along the lines of something maybe more but also the greater potential to turn into a battle to the death. It was heavy. It was complicated. Here, I feel like we got know of that. Mostly because they spend so much time apart. Even when they finally reunite, they still put physical distance between them and I kind of hated it. That spark of chemistry that was infrequently teased in the first book was no longer here. I had idealistic hopes that there would’ve been a stronger romance segue in this story, but alas that was not the case.

The ending was even more shocking! I mean, I was expecting something major to happen but the results were far more devastating than I anticipated. It’s an ending that left me with conflicted feelings and I am not sure how I feel about everything overall now that it’s all said and done. Was it fitting? Sure, I guess. Could it have ended in another way and been better? Most assuredly. Is this ending the right one? Tough to say, but it’s the ending that we got. Despite the conflicting feelings I have about its ending, Our Dark Duet was still a satisfying read that definitely was one that took me by surprise.

Overall Rating 3.5/5 stars

This is the second book in a duet. And I liked it. But I liked our Savage Song better. Kate has left Verity and been living in Prosperity for 6 months. Prosperity is supposed to be monster free, but it isn’t. So she is hunting monsters. And then she comes across something she hasn’t seen before and accidentally sends it to Verity. So now she has to go back. August has been trying to save Verity along with he FTF. He’s given up much of his humanity and become what the situation needs to become. He has lost a chunk of himself. Once the two are back together, they take on the Chaos Eater in hopes of saving them all. Because if not, there will be no humans left. Only monsters