This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1) by Victoria Schwab

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌗 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Synopsis:

There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

I have only read one other book by Victoria Schwab but I enjoyed it. When I heard about The Savage Song I was even more invested in reading it than the other book I had read. I thought that the blurb made this book sound amazing! Monsters who don't really act like the cruel, cunning creatures that people make them out to be and humans who appear to be as villainous as one would believe monsters to be? Sign me up!
I loved this book because it turned out to be as fantastic as I thought it would be and so much more. Victoria Schwab took the idea of heroes/villains and monsters/humans to a whole new level. There were so many layers and sides to each of the characters making them interesting and complex. August doesn't want to be what he is but he doesn't have a choice so he attempts to see the silver lining in what he does and is. He has a good heart and I think that he doesn't really understand why the world is the way that it is. He fights against his very nature because he doesn't want to hurt anyone even if they have committed cruel acts. Kate was harder for me to understand. She wants to be accepted by her father so she attempts to bury any of her potential weaknesses. Kate was cruel in ways but I don't think that her heart was truly invested when she was being that way. 
I found the villains in this story a bit hard to understand. I wasn't sure that their motives were totally clear other than power and decimating their enemies. I would have liked for there have been more to it than that but I still appreciated the questions that the author posed during the book. She managed to make me question what makes someone a human or a monster. Does being human mean having emotions and striving to make the world a safer place? For putting someone's needs before your own? Does being a monster mean using others as pawns for selfish gains? Or does it mean killing people for food and/or amusement?
I found the monsters themselves to be fascinating. I loved how different they were from each other and I thought that the look and feel of each one was interesting and unique. The descriptions were so detailed that it was easy to picture them as I read. Some were known to have red eyes and to be vicious while others were known to be present at scenes like bombings and cult murders. I loved how music was used by one type of monster to take a soul and bring the truth to peoples lips. That was my favorite aspect of the description and I think that it is because music is a bog part of my life. It helped me to relate more to August because music was a part of him. He ached to play his music because he loved it.