Reviews with content warning for Murder - Book of Night

Book of Night is actually the first book by Black that I’ve read – besides reading the Spiderwick Chronicles as a child but I don’t remember anything about them. I wasn’t blown away by this novel, but it was a nice read, mainly because of the dark atmosphere and the interesting world.

In this book, we follow Charlie as she navigates a world in which shadows can be manipulated and are used for many shady things. Charlie soon finds herself in the centre of those because she goes on a mission to find a mysterious book. Her past helps her greatly with this task since she was once a thief and a criminal herself. The thief stuff and the few action scenes were honestly my favorite thing about this novel since they’re just so cool. Much of Charlie’s backstory is interesting as well, but it was a bit boring that much of it was told, just like the backstories of other characters. Furthermore, I always find a bit funny when YA authors write adult books because what makes books “adult” in their opinion is mentioning abuse, drugs, and sex often. This was here a bit over-the-top, and I’m sure there are other ways to make a book more adult. Some things were also quite predictable since the plot is a bit average, but I generally liked it.

I don’t know what I think about the ending though. What I did like about it was how

Charlie’s tricking Salt

but many other things about it were not so understandable. With all the plot twists and revelations, like

Vince being Remy’s shadow and not Remy or the hierophant being the murderer, apparently

, I was more irritated than shocked by them. Especially the second thing came a bit out of the blue for me. I also don’t like the last chapter and have the feeling it was only added to have the possibility for writing a second book.

Like I’ve mentioned at the beginning, the dark atmosphere created throughout the novel was so great. I imagined many scenes taking place in the dark or at least when it’s dusk/dawn, even when this wasn’t the case. The general world was interesting as well since I always love to read about urban fantasy novels where magic just exists, and we see how it’s dealt with in the modern world. Nevertheless, the world building was sometimes a bit irritating, and I struggled with imagining some things, like how a shadow is able to attack a person.

I don’t have strong opinions on the characters, I think they were all okay. Charlie seemed a bit try-hard edgy to me at the beginning but after the half, I started to warm up with her. I honestly found her past life and how she was back then more interesting, and I would love to read a whole book about it. Vince was a fascinating character from the beginning, but I didn’t care for Remy’s POV at all and don’t think that it was necessary. What I find a bit sad though is that mostly only men are part of the conspiracy and hence play a bigger role.

I’m not sure why we need a sequel to Book of Night since the story is nicely wrapped up at the end, even though it’s a bit open. Still, I wouldn’t mind reading more about Charlie since I started to like her quite a lot but I’m not the biggest fan of the situation she was put in at the end.

Content Warnings

linacat's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

annorabrady's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-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

4.5

Content Warnings

cc_shelflove's review against another edition

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challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

1.0

Four days of pure TORTURE, and not even in a good way! This book was a mess. There was no world building and the magic was explained only in bits and pieces. At times I had no idea what I was reading. In short, people in Book of Night can modify their shadows—give them wings, memories they don’t want anymore, magical powers… I still don’t totally know and I don’t care! For this reader, it almost felt like there was a book missing before this one. Also, Holly Black calls herself a New Englander but doesn’t even know that Dunkin’ Donuts does not sell bear claws? The fuck?? This book had the dullest, crappiest characters ever, man, and it even included a paragraph about a third nipple that I have no idea how it got past the editor. Save your time and don’t read this. Truly one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

Content Warnings

tuckedwithinpages's review against another edition

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4.0

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iloponis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

holly black, how can you name drop so many western mass landmarks and not refer to the umass library as web du bois library

i kind of didnt really understand a lot of this plot and i did predict parts of the ending but i ended up rly enjoying this. loooved vince.

Content Warnings

taryn_g's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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