Books: A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab

As much as I adored A Darker Shade of Magic . . . This book didn't do it for me.

This is, of course, subjective. But here are the things I didn't like:

• So much focus on Lila. I know lots of people love her, but she's a bit Mary Sue for me.
• Repetitive words and phrases. If Lila has a smile "like a knife" or "sharp smile" one more time . . . Seriously, stop. Find other words and ways to describe things.
• Kell wasn't the character I fell in love with in the first book. I understand that characters change and grow, but he wasn't very likable in this. He's moving in the wrong direction.
• The "Magic Olympics" (or whatever they called it, but that's pretty much what it was). I don't like stories about contests, so this did not interest me at all. Long passages describing battles? I skimmed. Actually, I didn't even skim, I just skipped to the end to see who'd won.

As I mentioned, all subjective. I know many people love this book. But it took me forever to finish because I just couldn't get into it.