Review: The Fragile Threads of Power

The Fragile Threads of Power by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Six years and change since Schwab last wrote and published a full length novel in the world of the Shades of Magic, six years since I first bid that trilogy vas ir...anoshe, and now we're back with the long-awaited, long-hyped first book of the sequel trilogy. Just like the first book of the original trilogy, though, I do have to say that it doesn't quite live fully up to the hype for me. For this one, as grateful as I am to return to the series that's deservedly Schwab's signature work, I still have to give this one a 3.5 rounded up to a 4.

Though the book itself doesn't look, on first glance, like it's gonna be a big 600-plus pager (I swear, A Conjuring of Light physical printings were at least twice as thick despite the similar page count), it starts to feel its length somewhere around page 100 or so, when the story really starts to grind its gears straining to lift off the ground. Most of that is due to the introduction of a couple of new characters whose stories and motivations take some time to figure out. Kosika, the child queen of White London, who is frankly quite a creepy character but gets very little screen time in the first half of the book. And Tes, who almost seems like she'd be somewhat OP with her ability to sense "threads" of magic, but proves to be very interesting because of how much she's had to manipulate her own life behind the scenes, pretending to be the apprentice to a wizard who isn't really there like some AU version of Markl from Howl's Moving Castle.

I have to say, though, Tes becomes one of my favorite characters quite quickly, which is a great thing because while the original core cast from the original trilogy - Kell, Rhy, Lila, and even Alucard - are all back, not all of them manage to maintain my level of love for them from before. I'm especially looking at Lila here, because she manages to come off so selfish and uncaring of her friends - or even her lover Kell, and while I always did love Kell, and still do for his perfectly brotherly bonds with Rhy, he becomes oddly passive in this book and I definitely didn't enjoy reading that. But Tes is definitely on a level with Rhy and Alucard as a favorite for this book, and that's saying something when Alucard's character arc largely involves his family (whom we haven't seen much of up to now, and I don't blame him for not wanting us to know they exist) deciding that now's as good a time as any to start playing the Game of Thrones.

That said, though, while Kosika is a scarily effective villain for the moments when she shows up...let's just say I did not appreciate the mid-book twist revealing the Villain Behind the Villain. As if Schwab didn't learn just one wrong lesson from King of Scars, putting a lot of emphasis on a super unlikable heroine as one of the lead characters, but she also had to ape that book's ending, the ending for which I'll never, ever forgive Leigh Bardugo...

IYKYK.

But hopefully we won't have to wait too long for Schwab to continue this trilogy, though I definitely would prefer to see her place more emphasis on Alucard's family playing the Game of Thrones, because we all know which villainous story she really wants to tell instead, and I'm not gonna be happy with it...

But also, to those who I saw give this book bad reviews because "Rhy has a wife" - isn't it obvious that, like one of the queens in Samantha Shannon's Priory of the Orange Tree, it's only to produce an heir, and Alucard is still Rhy's true love?

And besides, this is V.E. Bloody Schwab we're talking about. She's not about to write Rhy as anything but gay.        

View all my reviews