Title: Our Dark Duet (Book #2)
Series: Monsters of Verity
Author: Victoria Schwab
Genre: YA Paranormal, Fantasy
Publisher: Greenwillow
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Synopsis from Goodreads:
THE WORLD IS BREAKING. AND SO ARE THEY.
KATE HARKER isn’t afraid of monsters. She hunts them. And she’s good at it.
AUGUST FLYNN once yearned to be human. He has a part to play. And he will play it, no matter the cost.
THE WAR HAS BEGUN.
THE MONSTERS ARE WINNING.
Kate will have to return to Verity. August will have to let her back in. And a new monster is waiting—one that feeds on chaos and brings out its victims’ inner demons.
Which will be harder to conquer: the monsters they face, or the monsters within?
***there will be spoilers from the previous book, if you have not yet read This Savage Song, please do not read further. I have a non-spoiler review for This Savage Song here.
Plot
When reading Our Dark Duet, Schwab starts 6 months after the ending of This Savage Song. At first we jump into different perspectives with Kate and August in which we see two different sides of the spectrum. I love how Schwab expands her world and we see what is going on in two different towns, Prosperity and Verity. Kate had ran away to Prosperity in This Savage Song after the death of her father, meanwhile August stays behind in Verity.
In Prosperity, Kate hunts the monsters with a little help of a new set of characters that go by the name of The Wardens. In Verity, August becomes leader of the FTF and makes sure that the only humans who can trespass to safe grounds are humans with pure souls. Kate while in chase of monsters meets a new one that has never been spoken of and/or seen. When meeting this new monster, Chaos the Eater, some things are set in motion and everything goes downhill from there. August although being a leader is still struggling with the monster within himself while dealing with the ones outside and slowly but surely everything starts clicking.
Thoughts
Excuse me while I sit here and cry over that heart wrenching ending. WTF Schwab!!! How do you write such amazing books that leave me crying and hurting for dayyysss?!?! HOOOOWWWW?!?! An amazing conclusion to the Monsters of Verity Duology. I have never felt more satisfied by a series. Schwab left me with my heart in my throat and literal tears.
Our Dark Duet is the continuation of This Savage Song. After This Savage Song had ended, I was left in anticipation for this book. I was also left with a lot of questions, wondering about August and Kate and their whereabouts. Left with questions about other characters as well. And Schwab just took my soul and ran with it. Like if August played his violin and left me in bliss.
Our Dark Duet was filled with darkness, poetry, mentions of stardust, edge of your seat scenes, and tons of chaos. READ IT!
I really liked how Schwab gave us character development but also realistic characters that I was able to relate to. She did an amazing job in showing us their thought processing and what they were going through internally. Ugh, I love when books do that!
I absolutely loved the open-ending and just how raw it was. I couldn’t imagine the book with another type of ending, especially when the book was very dark. I found it to be much darker than This Savage Song, to me it was the perfect ending. Schwab had me on the edge of my seat and I couldn’t stop reading the book.
I am hoping that Schwab makes a spin-off for The Wardens.
“…..
so alone
it buries her
that sadness
swallows her
whole
the only sound
a voice
her voice
….”
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i would love to chat in the comments about this book!! what were your thoughts?
Instagram: @chicnerdreads
Twitter: @ChicNerdReads
Great review. You make me want to run to the nearest library/bookstore and pick this up! I haven’t read any of Schwab’s books, but I know I should do it. I also like the fact that it’s a duology since I don’t want to start a new, long series.
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OMG you have to pick it up lol! Just like you, I loved that it’s a duology for that reason too. Dark and to the point!
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This was a great review and sounds like a great book lol love the gifs! Lol
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Thank you! ❤
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Great review! When I saw your tweets about it I had an inkling you were going to rate it 5 stars 😉
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hehehehe thank you Kate! this was a great book and i really hope she pulls off a spinoff!
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Great review Twin! I agree 100% it most def was darker than This Savage Song & the character development was A++! lol. I am still reeling from that ending, although perfect it still hurts soooo much! *sobs* I know we share the same feelings & love for this book, you can usually tell with our reviews haha! I am keeping my hopes up for a spin-off featuring The Wardens and/or Soro cuz he was also very interesting & was left somewhat changed by the end, or at least I think he was lol. Gahhhhh! More! we need more! 🙂
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WE NEED SO MUCH MORE TWIN!!! where is it?! why don’t we have it?! lol and a lot of people are hoping for a Wardens spin-off so I hope her and Harper listen *fingers crossed*
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Haha!!! Praying to the book Gods twin 🙌🏼📚🙌🏼 😃
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Great Review! I hate sad endings! I should’ve known it’s not going to have an happy ending because it’s a romeo and Juliet retelling. Nevertheless, it was a great book.
Loved those gif’s btw! 🙂
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Thank you so much!!
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Great review. I want to read the book ASAP. I love the way Schwab writes. She makes the whole book so engaging and enjoyable. I am still reading ACOL and not read the Monsters of Verity series yet. I hope I will pick the duology soon
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I hope you pick up the duology soon as well. i plan on reading ADSOM in a few days and i am really excited!
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Great review for this book Gretchen. I completely agree with everything you said, especially the ending! Our Dark Duet completely broke my heart but at the same time I just can’t see it ending any other way, both in terms of what happened to the characters and the openness of it all.
I didn’t think of a spin-off for the Wardens before, but now you’ve mentioned it YES! I need it like I need air to breathe! Also it would be interesting to see more of Prosperity and the monsters they have there.
Again great review for this book, and I’m so glad you enjoyed it as well! 😀
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Yes I so agree with you on the ending! I couldn’t see it any other way either. I think it went perfect with the darkness of the books.
THE SPIN-OFF WOULD BE AMAZING! I feel like she left it open for The Wardens and Prosperity..especially since Kate left in the middle of it so they didn’t get closure (in my opinion). therefore, it would make for a great spin-off lol.
Thank you Beth! Seriously love Schwab and her writing!
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Heartbreaking but perfect, part of me feels that may become a theme with the endings to Schwab’s series. 🙂
God same here, I’d love to see more of them and exploring more of the world outside of Verity would be interesting too.
That’s all right. 😀
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I had to peek and see how many stars you gave this, but I am awful. I never read reviews for sequels when I have not read the first book 😦 I won’t even read blurbs haha. I have the Savage Song downloaded on my Kindle. I hope it will be one of my reads this summer ❤
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Lol I do the same thing too!! I hope you like This Savage Song, it is perfect (in my opinion)! Thank you for stopping by!
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I was already excited to read this, but this just made me even more excited!!
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YAAAYYYY!!!!!!!! I am so happy it did! I really hope you like it ❤
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[…] I am still in my feelings and can’t quite believe it’s over. I have a non-spoiler review for it here. The review does however contain spoilers from the first book, please be […]
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I will admit, I didn’t read this review since I haven’t read This Savage Song yet (the library hold list is over 100 people long!). Thanks for pointing me towards your This Savage Song review! I’ll check that out instead. 😀
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thank you ❤
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[…] Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab! Hands down, best sequel I have read so far. I do plan on reading A Gathering of Shadows and A Conjuring of Light in the next half of the year so I wonder if any of these will take it’s place lol. I have a non-spoiler review here. […]
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