BOOK REVIEW: NEVERNIGHT BY JAY KRISTOFF (No Spoilers!)

Title: Nevernight [Goodreads Link]

Author: Jay Kristoff

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Goodreads Summary: Destined to destroy empires Mia Covere is only ten years old when she is given her first lesson in death. 

Six years later, the child raised in the shadows takes her first steps towards keeping the promise she made on the day that she lost everything. 

But the chance to strike against such powerful enemies will be fleeting, so if she is to have her revenge, Mia must become a weapon without equal. She must prove herself against the deadliest of friends and enemies, and survive the tutelage of murderers, liars and demons at the heart of a murder cult. 

The Red Church is no Hogwarts, but Mia is no ordinary student. The shadows loves her. And they drink her fear. 

Review: 

What? A new review? I haven't just dropped off the face of the Earth. I know I say this every time I come back from a long break but I really do want to try and get back to regularly posting on this blog. So, I thought there to be no book better to start the ball rolling than this one, because I absolutely loved it. 

Nevernight was my first taste at Jay Kristoff's solo work, having only previously read his shared book with Amie Kaufman, Illuminae. Due to the unconventional nature of how that story is told (ie. completely in correspondence), I wasn't actually aware how Kristoff's long prose read before this. Which is sad, because it's absolutely beautiful. Some of the lines from this book were just so good I wanted to read them over and over to hope to appreciate them as much as they deserved. I haven't been so enthused by a writing style since I read Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles (ie. some of my favourite books ever). Despite how great the writing is, I wouldn't say it's easy to consume. This book makes you work for the story a bit. The writing gets a bit thick but if you can find the flow of it, it's a truly great story to behold. 

Footnotes can definitely disrupt the flow when you're trying to get your groundings with what this book is about. I found they were, at times, a bit too long and distracting that they felt like too much. In saying that, I actually got to attend a talk with Jay yesterday where the footnotes were mentioned and he said that the footnotes are there for that extra information some readers want (his actual phrasing was something along the lines of  "for the fantasy nerds like me who want all the backstory") but you don't lose anything from the main story if you skip them. I definitely wouldn't skip them because I am one of those fantasy nerds, but info dumps like that never really help the pacing of a narrative (I also binge read the book in a day to be done in time for said Jay event, so I might've just been annoyed that the footnotes were slowing down my reading, haha). The footnotes also had some of the funniest lines of the entire book, which was great.

As for the characters, I thought we had a really solid main cast. Mia is a really kickass protagonist to read from. I like how we got to see that she is not completely cold-hearted. There are those little bits of humanity still within her but I definitely feel as if that's going to develop in a way that sends her down the dark path, rather than the opposite. I also need to know more about her shadow powers, they were really fascinating to read about. Magic, in general, in this book is just really well down. It has a realistic system to it and I loved that it wasn't something that was necessarily easy. It comes with a price and not just gifted to people without consequence. I can't wait to delve deeper into this stuff in the next books.

Going back to characters, more interesting is our narrator, who is a mysterious figure and whose identity is yet unknown. It's definitely a character within the story but that's about all we've got so far. They're definitely going to be of some importance in later books so I can't wait to find out. It's also interesting to read a book that's entirely filled with such morally grey characters and having to accept a world that normalises some really brutal stuff. The story never lets you forget that it's about assassins and these are not the best people in the world. They are all killers and people are definitely going to die throughout this story. But I think, given that premise, it makes the interactions and dynamics and growth of the characters so much more interesting. Without giving too much away, I'm really interested to see where the relationship between a certain two characters go in the rest of the series considering how much it got completely flipped upside down at the end of this one.

Overall, I obviously really, really enjoyed this book. It's not completely flawless, but it hits enough of the beats it needs to that make me recommend it highly. I could talk about so many things but I toeing the line of delving into spoiler territory here. So in summary, it's compelling, filled with complex, rich characters, so well-written and surprises you with some of the ways the story twists. Honestly, it took some amazing turns I didn't see coming at all (which is quite an accomplishments because I'm pretty good at predicting those). 

So, what are you waiting for? Go read this book right now! And for those who have, let me know in the comments some of your thoughts on Nevernight. Favourite scene, favourite character? Let's discuss!

Until next time!

J, xxx