Title: Our Dark Duet

Author: V.E. Schwab

Reviewer: Natalie Lincoln

Audience:  12+

Kate, the pragmatic monster killer, listens to music as she hunts. Her friend (or enemy), August, plays music to reap the souls of sinners. When a new monster appears in the city of Verity, Kate must return from a new life in neighbouring Prosperity to defeat the shapeless beast that turns human against human. If they can unite, they might just win.

V.E Schwab’s Our Dark Duet is about the battle between good and evil, and is another tale questioning who is actually the bigger threat, the humans or the monsters. It is also so much more. Being a sequel, I’d advise reading That Savage Song first as I had to work to figure out the backstory of the cities of Verity and Prosperity and the complicated relationship between Kate, who fights both internal and external monsters, and August, a monster trying not to be one. Regardless, I was swept away with the increasingly fast paced action and read faster and faster, and with increasing nervousness, as the shadowy new monster rose.

Protagonist, Kate, cooly dispenses with monsters, and together, she and ‘frenemy’ August, are juxtaposed in a duel between human and monster, distrust and lust, and one is never quite sure, like themselves, which side they will land on. Almost more intriguing are the monsters -  the shadowy Corsai, spawned by violence and surviving on flesh; the corpse like Malchai, made by murder; and the most beautiful monsters, the Sunai, formed by major catastrophes and who play instruments to feed on the souls of sinners. From the striking Prelude, I was captivated by this world and the uniqueness of the characters, both human and monster.

There is an abundance of death in this novel. It is dark, and young adult readers will like it. In my school library this would however, be having an ‘older readers’ flag attached despite the recommended reading for 12 years+. For a story about monsters, the writing is mature, with a descriptiveness and detail that lifts it to the literary. The verse sections provide another refreshing element, reinforcing for me, that this novel is more than just a story about good versus evil. Stylistically the story is elevated beyond your ordinary fantasy genre of humans and monsters, resulting in a nuanced vision of the light and dark that exists in all of our souls.