First things first: The Story
Kell has the power to travel between universes, he is what in their world is called a "Traveler" (Though I don't recall anyone actually calling him that?). He comes from a universe where magic is something common, everyone can control it to some extent. Because of reasons, the royals of each universe's London keep contact with each other, and the "Travelers" are their official mail-men.
Kell likes to collect things from other universes, which is prohibited and his brother asks him to stop doing before something bad happens, but of course something bad happens the last time he was supposed to be doing it.
All the universes are at risk, and Kell has to team up with a random girl he met at the street to stop it.
And that's pretty much the story.
The Characters
Our protagonist is Kell, a privileged cute white boy who has a dangerous hobby, has angsty family drama but is otherwise good natured and has a hero complex.
Lila is our other narrator, she is a random girl Kell meets at a street when running away from some bad guys. But by the power of Fate Lila is not any random stranger, she has power of her own, which is a rare thing from the universe she is from.
The twins: Athos and Astrid, were okay. I loved how easy Schwab made it for me to picture them, they felt dangerous and dark, I am not going to lie though, they turned pretty Team Rocket-ish at the end. They kept making mistake after mistake and made it too easy for Kell.
The other characters were kind of just there, I couldn't care less about them.
United Colours of London
There are 4 universes, though Kell only knows about each´s London. He brings items between them but has never ventured outside the city or learned more about the rest of the world in each universe.
He even refers to each universe by *insert colour* London, he does not travel between universes but between Londons. That London-centrism bothered me.
Anyway, as I was saying, there are 4 Londons: The Grey one, where Lila is from, and has no magic. Red London, where magic is all about balance and is a normal thing and Kell's home. Grey London, where the bad guys live and magic means power. And Black London, which was locked away because magic turned into a disease.
I'm just not that into you (yet)
I had a hard time getting into the story, not that Schwab isn't a fantastic writer, but Kell and Lila were not the best narrators ever. Nor the most exiting ones.
But once the story picked up, once there was finally (finally) some conflict, it was almost a page-turner! There were fights, and running away, and more fights and before I knew it: it was over.
The story for me was like a bomb with a very, very long fuse. All was worth it in the end.
Cool Fights
I was between talking about the fights or the romance, but since I have already spoken about so many things I did not like I thought I should mention some I did like.
The fights sequences were phenomenal! Magic certainly made everything cooler. There are some stories were the fighting parts are a big mess or hard to understand what is happening, but in this story the fights were descriptive without making it confusing!
In Conclusion:
Solid story, world building kind of meh. Works as a stand alone but can't wait to see where this story is going!
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