AndySoc1al reviewed The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab (Threads of Power, #1)
Book FOUR of a previous Trilogy
3 stars
While the book held a good story, it also held a lot of padding. Calling this "book 1" of a series is wildly misleading, as it is clearly a sequel to a previous series (the Shades of Magic). In an effort to relieve the reader of the need to finish the earlier books, The Fragile Threads of Power is overloaded with exposition in the form of multiple layers of flashbacks. Perhaps this would have worked better as Shades of Magic book 4, instead. At least then the reader would have assumed they'd need some familiarity with the previous work, and the author could have trimmed about half of the verbiage from this tome.
OK, that out of the way - it's an interesting concept, with the four parallel "worlds" with different magical strengths. Many of the characters are interesting, particularly Tes, but most of the named characters have some intriguing …
While the book held a good story, it also held a lot of padding. Calling this "book 1" of a series is wildly misleading, as it is clearly a sequel to a previous series (the Shades of Magic). In an effort to relieve the reader of the need to finish the earlier books, The Fragile Threads of Power is overloaded with exposition in the form of multiple layers of flashbacks. Perhaps this would have worked better as Shades of Magic book 4, instead. At least then the reader would have assumed they'd need some familiarity with the previous work, and the author could have trimmed about half of the verbiage from this tome.
OK, that out of the way - it's an interesting concept, with the four parallel "worlds" with different magical strengths. Many of the characters are interesting, particularly Tes, but most of the named characters have some intriguing depth to them. I kind of saw the big reveal coming long before it was written, but that didn't remove any of the interest. I still want to know why.
