My Reaction in a Nutshell: 
 My least favorite V.E. Schwab/Victoria Schwab book is still killer. 
 The Long Version: 
 I am a long time Schwab fan. And by long time...I mean about one year. Last August (the month, not the character), I read A Darker Shade of Magic followed by Vicous a week later and then this spring I read A Gathering of Shadows (the second book in Schwab's Shades of Magic series). I have yet to read a bad book by V.E. Schwab. Now, that being said, I briefly tried to read The Archived by Victoria Schwab, and couldn't make it past chapter one. So I wasn't certain how a Victoria book would shape up against a V.E. book. 
 The fact that This Savage Song is my least favorite V.E. Schwab/Victoria Schwab book does in no way, shape, or form make it a bad book. It is hard when she is competing with her own awesomeness. It was still a good book, but not as great as the others. 
 This Savage Song takes place in an alternate America: 
 "Where are you, Kate? she asked herself. 
 It was a game she sometimes played, ever since she learned about the theory of infinite parallels, the idea that a person's path through life wasn't really a line, but a tree, every decision a divergent branch, resulting in a divergent you. She liked the idea that there were a hundred different Kates, living a hundred different lives. 
 Maybe in one of them, there were no monsters." 
 I loved the concept of a different version of our world where somewhere along the line someone made a decision that bred monsters from violence and altered our world as we know it. That being said, Schwab really dragged out the world-building in this book. It felt like I had to wait a long time before the characters and monsters and city divide even began to make sense. And even after finishing the book, I still have a lot of unanswered questions that should have been answered. 
 As per usual, Schwab tip toes the line between good and evil, monster and hero: the line of the morally grey. August is a soul sucking monster and Kate is a mobster's daughter desperately seeking his approval. Even though I was promised that there is no romance in this book, I was still afraid in chapter one that there was going to be a Romeo&Juliet-esque romance. Thankfully that didn't happen. (view spoiler)[Basically it had all of components of a YA survival novel, but the two MCs are actually more focused on survival than sucking face. (hide spoiler)] Hallelujah! 
 That being said, this book felt more predictable than her other books. The plot, although interesting, wasn't as compelling as ADSOM or AGOS or Vicious. 
 I like August. A lot. 
 "It was a cruel trick of the universe, thought August, that he felt human only after doing something monstrous." 
 I enjoyed reading about his battle to stay human and how his family differs from him. I only wish that his family was more involved in this book. 
 Overall, I really enjoyed this book, but it wasn't as great as Schwab's books usually are. I am still really looking forward to its sequel (like, practically counting down the days), but not as much as I'm looking forward to V.E. Schwab's A Conjuring of Light. 
 ***TRIGGER WARNINGS: car crash, arson, suicide, war, gangs, incarceration, kidnapping, death, murder, torture