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teaforghosts's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-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
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Outing, and Alcohol
atypicalley's review against another edition
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I feel like I can tell you exactly what this author reads likes based on the lines I heard repeated — once or twice, almost word for word. Like… sorry bud, you can’t near-quote LOTR without me recognizing where it came from. So, this book is born of:
-Brent Weeks
-Patrick Rothfuss
-Bloodborne
-The Witcher
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing (though it gets a bit repetitive). I think the problem for me is, the author is using pieces of stories he loves without fully understanding why they worked in other instances.
We have a “novel in a novel” format, right? Straight out of Kingkiller chronicles, but with a less charming storyteller. But structurally, the time jumps are skipping the most interesting part of the story, and losing the sense of mystery that a time jump should build. I understood everything that’d happened between the 11 year time skip within a single chapter, with no mystery, no tension. But because we’d skipped the part where the love interest *became* the love interest, I also didn’t care.
We have a dark and gritty world, where all the women are overtly described and all the sex scenes begin or end with violence. Not for any particular *reason.* In fact, I’m of the opinion that the only sex scene that had any impact on the character and led to change happened when the MC was literally a child. It feels very Game of Thrones Season 1– aiming for shock and awe, ‘we can cuss on public television, we’re sooooo tough.” Oh, and also the horse dies. Because. It’s gotta be sad. But like… we never did any adventures with the horse? We’d literally just met the horse? Dark and gritty is all well and good— I knew what I was picking up. But that only works when there is some *opposite* to balance. Dark content is dark because it shows you the light first. Sadness is born of lost love. Pain is born of lost joy. But you only ever get the formers, and not the latters. So… I just didn’t care through most of the book. Probably would’ve DNF’d if I’d been reading physically.
The female characters are picked straight out of the Witcher. Hell, so is the main character. But the Maiden/Madonna/Whore complex is in fuuuuull glory over here, and it does get tedious.
-Brent Weeks
-Patrick Rothfuss
-Bloodborne
-The Witcher
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing (though it gets a bit repetitive). I think the problem for me is, the author is using pieces of stories he loves without fully understanding why they worked in other instances.
We have a “novel in a novel” format, right? Straight out of Kingkiller chronicles, but with a less charming storyteller. But structurally, the time jumps are skipping the most interesting part of the story, and losing the sense of mystery that a time jump should build. I understood everything that’d happened between the 11 year time skip within a single chapter, with no mystery, no tension. But because we’d skipped the part where the love interest *became* the love interest, I also didn’t care.
We have a dark and gritty world, where all the women are overtly described and all the sex scenes begin or end with violence. Not for any particular *reason.* In fact, I’m of the opinion that the only sex scene that had any impact on the character and led to change happened when the MC was literally a child. It feels very Game of Thrones Season 1– aiming for shock and awe, ‘we can cuss on public television, we’re sooooo tough.” Oh, and also the horse dies. Because. It’s gotta be sad. But like… we never did any adventures with the horse? We’d literally just met the horse? Dark and gritty is all well and good— I knew what I was picking up. But that only works when there is some *opposite* to balance. Dark content is dark because it shows you the light first. Sadness is born of lost love. Pain is born of lost joy. But you only ever get the formers, and not the latters. So… I just didn’t care through most of the book. Probably would’ve DNF’d if I’d been reading physically.
The female characters are picked straight out of the Witcher. Hell, so is the main character. But the Maiden/Madonna/Whore complex is in fuuuuull glory over here, and it does get tedious.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
rooree's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Really liked it, straight into book 2. The method of telling a story through the main c narrating his story worked a lot better than I thought it would. Classic gothic vampire genre. Good character development as well as plot development. Overall plot reveal is probably quite slow (definitely done across the three books), but the events that happen through the development of that plot are quite fast paced so works quite well. Brilliant narrator.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Homophobia, Grief, and War
karin_h_p_d's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, and War
whatlisareads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence
Moderate: Addiction
exteenawreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
(3-4 ⭐? can't decide) I have two wolves within me: one finger-gunning and saying "Niiice, hot slutty vampires" and the other screaming "The Bechdel Test! Misogyny! Fridging!! Gross obsession with sexualizing underage kids!"
So ya, I dunno.
I think the writing was excellent, the world was immersive and thrilling, and the story compelling. The battle scenes are expertly written and many moments are truly exhilarating. The prose is beautiful and poetic, the characters are memorable and unique. I really enjoyed what was basically a randomly generated DND party of diverse folks, forced together and fighting against all odds on a quest to save the broken world. It seems to heavily take inspiration from other media I love like The Witcher and The Last of Us, though that meant I wasn't too surprised by the direction. It was just so painfully obviously written by a man the feminist in me couldn't help but cringe often. And don't get me wrong, I get that the point of showing all of this violence and hatred of women is to highlight it as toxic and wrong. But the way it's written also glorifies it, and the story isn't about fighting the patriarchy - it's about a man out for revenge and glory, his enemy just happens to also be thinly veiled patriarchy and religious zealotry.
Ex: A vampire obsessed with teenage girls and turning them to be his unwilling slaves, literally pulling his carriage all half naked? = Evil, this is a villain, we don't root for him. But the writing itself directs the reader to see these things moreso as acts of great power and strength, and the simple truth of what a man would do if they were infinite and unkillable. This vampire is described very positively as beautiful, strong, something to be respected and feared. Yes he's a villain, but I'm also not convinced the author doesn't sort of revere men like him or at least see this as the average man's ideal. And the many examples of this throughout are hard to ignore.
Overall I did really like it, I just feel a little icky about it. And I truly could have done without the underage kid sexualizing. And the animal deaths :(
So ya, I dunno.
I think the writing was excellent, the world was immersive and thrilling, and the story compelling. The battle scenes are expertly written and many moments are truly exhilarating. The prose is beautiful and poetic, the characters are memorable and unique. I really enjoyed what was basically a randomly generated DND party of diverse folks, forced together and fighting against all odds on a quest to save the broken world. It seems to heavily take inspiration from other media I love like The Witcher and The Last of Us, though that meant I wasn't too surprised by the direction. It was just so painfully obviously written by a man the feminist in me couldn't help but cringe often. And don't get me wrong, I get that the point of showing all of this violence and hatred of women is to highlight it as toxic and wrong. But the way it's written also glorifies it, and the story isn't about fighting the patriarchy - it's about a man out for revenge and glory, his enemy just happens to also be thinly veiled patriarchy and religious zealotry.
Ex: A vampire obsessed with teenage girls and turning them to be his unwilling slaves, literally pulling his carriage all half naked? = Evil, this is a villain, we don't root for him. But the writing itself directs the reader to see these things moreso as acts of great power and strength, and the simple truth of what a man would do if they were infinite and unkillable. This vampire is described very positively as beautiful, strong, something to be respected and feared. Yes he's a villain, but I'm also not convinced the author doesn't sort of revere men like him or at least see this as the average man's ideal. And the many examples of this throughout are hard to ignore.
Overall I did really like it, I just feel a little icky about it. And I truly could have done without the underage kid sexualizing. And the animal deaths :(
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War
jadehusdanhicks's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
An ambitious start to a series this book is a monster at over 700 pages. I found its format to be quite unique in its format of our tale being dictated as a story to the enemy of our protagonist. You see two sides of Gabriel , the darkened drunk who’s lost his faith, family and friends and the silver saint, national hero who still had hope and may have been the key to our problems.
With days death, the light is nearly gone making it perfect for the vampires to rise and walk in the day when they previously couldn’t. This story definitely focuses on worldbuilding to set the scene for the rest of the series, but also sets a tone of revenge between Gabriel and the Voss ruler. I enjoyed how intricate the world is, with nations broken down into main and indigenous areas as well as establishing a ruling religious system as well as opposing pagan beliefs.
From grief to religious trauma, death to homophobia, murder to betrayal, and more this book covers a lot of tropes and topics and can certainly be a hard read with its length and depth. For some it may be confusing to follow at points as we jump from the story back to a scene of our MC being made to tell the story for documentation so it isn’t linear in its timeline but it was a unique choice to format which certainly had me intrigued.
It’s a shame that kristoff is the author as honestly i enjoyed this and would continue the series but with his fetishisation of wlw minors and appropriating and criticising Māori culture in nevernight i morally can’t support him as an author and wouldn’t have purchased had i know this beforehand.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
darialoana's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Violence, Blood, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal death and Child abuse
bohboh's review against another edition
Not great writing. Mishandling of French and generally uncomfortable sexism / misogyny plagues it. My eyes hurt from rolling them so much at the descriptors for the supposed macho-manly Silversaint knights. I do not understand the appeal, and reading about the dozens of controversies surrounding the author online, I'm quite comfortable leaving this one DNF.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
jessinova's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
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
This book was incredible. I never got bored, I laughed, I cried. It’s a journey you take with, Gabe…a hell of a journey is what you get. The way this book was written really made me feel like I knew Gabe inside and out. You felt what he felt, the misery, happiness, excitement, pain. The relationships with characters were well fleshed out. This book was awesome. I am going straight into the second.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Blood
Moderate: Child death