My Kyrosmagica Review of Victoria Schwab’s The Unbound

Goodreads Synopsis:

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Last summer, Mackenzie Bishop, a Keeper tasked with stopping violent Histories from escaping the Archive, almost lost her life to one. Now, as she starts her junior year at Hyde School, she’s struggling to get her life back. But moving on isn’t easy — not when her dreams are haunted by what happened. She knows the past is past, knows it cannot hurt her, but it feels so real, and when her nightmares begin to creep into her waking hours, she starts to wonder if she’s really safe.

Meanwhile, people are vanishing without a trace, and the only thing they seem to have in common is Mackenzie. She’s sure the Archive knows more than they are letting on, but before she can prove it, she becomes the prime suspect. And unless Mac can track down the real culprit, she’ll lose everything, not only her role as Keeper, but her memories, and even her life. Can Mackenzie untangle the mystery before she herself unravels?

With stunning prose and a captivating mixture of action, romance, and horror, The Unbound delves into a richly imagined world where no choice is easy and love and loss feel like two sides of the same coin.

My review:

Once again, Victoria Schwab has charmed me. In my opinion this is even better than the Archived, which is some compliment considering that The Archived was a 4 star read, and well sequel books must be so hard to write. I totally relate to this as I’ve finished my first novel and I’m now at that point when I should be thinking about writing the sequel, but it is so hard to begin. Where do you even start? I love the way in which Victoria Schwab effortlessly managed to re-introduce the back story, and all the characters, and added some new ones too. This book is a wonderful read,  it has been a great help and an inspiration to me.

I was amused by her own self-reflexive review on Goodreads :

Writing this book gave me hives. Finishing it gave me an ulcer. Revising it made me hypertensive.

I am pretty sure it nearly killed me.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t hurt you to read. At least not in the same ways it hurt me to write.”

Well it didn’t hurt me, I did wince a bit in certain parts, but that was only because lady you can and do deliver a story with a punch.

I’m developing a bit of a fan thing going on here for Victoria Schwab. It all started with Vicious, then progressed onto The Archived and now we have The Unbound. Wherever will Victoria take me to next?

What did I like about the Unbound?

The DIALOGUE                                            

just buzzed with ACTION!

You could just hear her protagonists talk, see their gestures and movements. The action was full on and at times it made me flinch but in a wow that’s incredible way. Wesley was super cute. I really enjoyed his character in the Archived but somehow in The Unbound he just evolved into super cute Wes, caring, patient, and well just there for Mac.   The romance really develops in the sequel, in fact it smoulders and then sizzles at the end, so be prepared! Mac is such a wonderfully strong female character. After all that has happened to her, she is allowed to crumble, to question her nightmares, to fear where Owen is taking her. But she does it in such a believable way, she manages to pick herself up, and in this fragile state she has the courage to take on Agatha, now that’s brave. What else did I enjoy? Without doubt I admired the almost detective like feel to the second novel, and the way in which Mac touches other people’s lives, and her sense of guilt when she discovers what has befallen these innocent people when her instinctive acts of kindness have unexpected consequences.

My favourite Quotes:

“The funny thing about armor is that it doesn’t just keep other people out. It keeps us in. We build it up around us, not realizing that we’re trapping ourselves.”

Would I recommend it?

Of course. Yes, I’m most definitely a Victoria Schwab  fan. I’d recommend it to readers of  Young Adult, Paranormal, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance. Well, just about anybody that enjoys a really good read.

My rating. How am I going to rate this?

You guessed it!

Authors website: http://www.victoriaschwab.com/

Have you read The Unbound? Do comment I’d love to hear from you.

Bye for now,

Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx