A Darker Shade of Magic should be a book I like a whole lot: Decent writing, imperfect characters, parallel worlds – particularly parallel Londons – connected by magic, this book has it all.

Villain protagonists are cool in theory, but hard to do well, and I didn't feel like Schwab got it right. It's not that there is no motivation or background, it's more that the protagonist is an asshole and I don't enjoy spending time with assholes.