Our Dark Duet by V. E. Schwab

**KATE HARKER**
isn't afraid of monsters. She hunts them. And she's good at it.

**AUGUST FLYNN**
once yearned to be human. But no longer. 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?

This description comes from the publisher. *Our Dark Duet* is the second book in the Monsters of Verity duology, the first of which is *This Savage Song*.

Loved this duology. Every single character was so well written with so many emotions. Do you always have to kill the character who starts to change after giving them a redemption arc 😢

A great if not perfect sequel in this series (a “bilogy”? “duology”?) with a similar structure as the first book.
It picks up after a length of time wherin Kate is in a new city with a new set of friends but still fighting monsters though she only knows what little combat training she learned in high school P.E. class (which she tends to mention a LOT). August is still in Verity but moving up the ranks of his adoptive father's taskforce, being emo about how emo but also how not emo he is, and has a new metal-plated violin with a bow that is also a sword??? (where they found a master violin maker that could also defy the laws of what makes a violin actually work isn't part of the story and also magic etc). They still think of each other - because this is Romeo and Juliet with monsters - but without the communication grid between cities, they have nothing but nostalgia to go on. Then things happen as they tend to do which causes a new monster to be formed, who then finds out about a larger food source in Verity via Kate so Kate uses it as an excuse to be a dick to those who gave her things for free and follows the monster because she's strong and brave and true and stubborn to the point of stupidity like all YA heroines. Anyway, more things happen that are exciting and then sad and then maddening and then more sad but also exciting. There's no happy ending here.

Honestly this book was pretty underwhelming compared to the first. The first wasn't perfect, but it had real potential and I was excited to go into this one. It really let me down as I was bored pretty much 80% of the book. August went through some weird character change and I wasn't interested in him at all most of the book.

Also talking about the kiss for a moment. Just before it happened I was thinking to myself how nice it was that this series didn't force a romance that didn't seem to fit just for the sake of every teen fantasy having a romance and then the kiss... so there went that.

The ending was actually decently written to me though sad. I like where August and Kate ended up in their final scene together as it felt like the most authentic and real part of the whole story to me.