Reviews

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

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gjkennedy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wow. It almost makes me want to give Priory a lower rating because I feel this is such a marked improvement. It fixed the two major problems I had with priory: One being the imbalance between POVs and characters throughout the book, which I felt was perfect here. Two being the inability to kill people that matter, or just killing people who were obviously introduced to die. Holy shit, my feelings were so hurt by who died here. No one felt safe.

I genuinely loved this book, a new all time favorite for me. I think it stuck with me more than Priory because it couldn’t have a perfect end, and we knew that because it was a prequel? The lies and the pain that continues in the next book were still there at the end because they had to be. It felt real. I think because it wasn’t a narrative of overcoming so much as a narrative of surviving. Because few are the things in life that we truly conquer, that truly end and herald pure new days, yet many are the things that we must fight to survive.

Beyond that, the themes were so much more hard hitting and more robust, I think this is now my favorite feminist story of all time. 5/5 in all ways.

msturdy11's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

hanrutous's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

galexandriaw's review against another edition

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5.0

5/5 stars

Once again Samantha Shannon and the Roots of Chaos universe has my whole heart.

I have never had a book make me cry, but there was a moment at the end of the book that genuinely made me tear up.

I wasn't sure what it would be like to read this after reading Priory first; knowing things that the characters of Fallen Night didn't know. But Shannon did amazing at still keeping me on my toes, and seeing how things line up and parallel was so lovely. And even knowing early on that

Spoiler

Canthe was Kalyba, I started doubting her intentions and still ended up shook to my core.

I always have a hard time explaining to people why I love these books so much, but reading them is just so fun and fulfilling. Definitely going to be a universe I come back to again and again.