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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Twas poorly written, but the story itself was enthralling. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fine enough, fantasy for fantasy's sake. Intriguing, but not to too fine a point.
What a thrilling adventure! I love the complex story. The characters had great depth and beautiful arcs.
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I absolutely LOVED this first book in the night angel series.
It really is dark and gritty. At some points in the book I found myself reading with one eye closed and holding the book as far away from me as possible, while still reading. At others I found myself subconsciously holding my breath for quite some while.
This book really had me completely in it's grip. I literally couldn't put it down. If you are sensitive to blood and murder, this one is not for you (but I think that's pretty obvious as it is about assassins...). But if you don't have a problem with that, I can only tell you to go, get it and start reading already.
Edit:
By now I've read book two and three too. While book two was a bit lovey dovey for my liking, I really hated the ending of book three.
Why am I telling you this here? Because if I had know how I would feel after the other two books, I would simply have stopped after the first one. It's a quite perfect story all on it's own.
It really is dark and gritty. At some points in the book I found myself reading with one eye closed and holding the book as far away from me as possible, while still reading. At others I found myself subconsciously holding my breath for quite some while.
This book really had me completely in it's grip. I literally couldn't put it down. If you are sensitive to blood and murder, this one is not for you (but I think that's pretty obvious as it is about assassins...). But if you don't have a problem with that, I can only tell you to go, get it and start reading already.
Edit:
By now I've read book two and three too. While book two was a bit lovey dovey for my liking, I really hated the ending of book three.
Why am I telling you this here? Because if I had know how I would feel after the other two books, I would simply have stopped after the first one. It's a quite perfect story all on it's own.
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Holy Dude Bro Fantasy, Batman. What the hell was that? I was originally planning to read this in about a week. I have a lot going on right now so less time for reading, but then I really started disliking this one and just marathoned the last 450 pages in two days. My eyes hurt and I'm tired and feel like I've been mentally rung out like a damp towel. (Seriously, what the fuck was that?) This book is definitely of its time. The book came out in 2008 which may explain--not excuse--a lot of the problems I had with this one.
I'm sorry, but I have to do it, I have to start with the author's treatment of women. In this world, apparently only two kinds of women exist--the virgin or the whore. The virginal female characters are treated as angels who can do no wrong and deserve all of the love and protection that the main characters can provide. While the whores are forced to make their own way in this world. But don't worry violence--both sexual and non-sexual--happen to both types of women. The amount of sexual and physical violence that happens to vulnerable characters really made my skin crawl. I know it's a book on the origin story of an assassin. That's not the violence I'm talking about. I'm talking about three kids growing up in a street gang because that's the only way to survive when living on the streets and the gang's enforcer sexually abusing one of them while physically scarring another one of them. The magic system itself feels very loose and sloppy. There aren't any real limits as far as I can tell. It just depends on how much magic a character can hold. Basically their own capacity to wield magic. I found it confusing that the two main characters--the Master Durzo and the one being trained Kylar Stern--would lie to each other in order to get a certain reaction and the narration never picked up on it. Like, we would be seeing things from Kylar's point of view, he would lie to Durzo, and then he never thinks a single thought about it being a lie or give any clue that it's a lie until it's dropped in the epilogue. That makes no sense. The relationship between the main male character and his love interest felt creepy to me from the start so if I were to keep reading it I would probably hate where the canon goes with that.
One of the weirdly enjoyable things for me with this book was the friendship between Dorian, Solon, and Feir. We BARELY get them in this book, but I would say their interactions and fight scenes probably bumped this one up a half star for me. One is a seer who never gives his friends enough detail and it always plays out in a laughable way. Another is this physically strong blacksmith who is always at the end of his rope with Dorian's little prophecies. And Solon just has a sharp wit. Is it sad that those are the characters I like the most and we get maybe a handful of scenes with them out of a 600 page novel? Absolutely. I think that mostly speaks to the lack of connection, humor, or wit we get with the rest of our characters. But this paragraph is supposed to be about the good things. I actually feel like I could have melted into this world, this magic systems, this plot if it had been done better. There is just so much potential here. I think this is the author's debut novel (correct me if I'm wrong) which means the books probably do get better as you go along, but I don't know that I have it in me to read any more from this series. Maybe I'll give his other series a shot.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No