Reviews with content warning for Gore - Nevernight

Reviews tagging 'Gore'

erenreads12's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.5

Whilst parts of this book were enjoyable and overall the plot points were knitted together well, this book annoyed me like no other. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like a lot happened, and yet nothing happened. Mia's training in the church was overall shallow and by the time her training had ended I felt as though I hadn't seen any of the great improvements she suddenly made. The plot twist was good in that I didn't see it coming, but there just wasn't any meat to it; I couldn't get myself emotionally invested at all.

The smut was admittedly quite well written, but I have major issues with the graphic nature of sex in this book considering the protagonist's young age (and don't get me started on the weird seduction class thing it was just so fkin weird).

But my most pressing gripe....the footnotes. Oh God, the footnotes. This for me was what made the writing feel, despite its flowery metaphors and poetic style, straight up lazy. These footnotes are clearly intended to enrich the world building and its history and culture, but the use of footnotes indicates to me an inability to actually build the world within the text. The footnotes are often incredibly lengthy and, in my opinion, seriously disruptive to the flow of the story, to the point that sometimes by the time I was done reading a footnote I had forgotten what was going on in the story. After a while they annoyed me so much I just stopped reading them and it made absolutely no difference to my understanding of the story, indicating to me that they are entirely unnecessary. And despite the attempts to deepen the worldbuilding in this way, it felt as though thr magic system was just....there. In fact, it was totally abandoned.

Best thing about this book was the ending - the pace really picks up and ends in a mostly satisfying manner. But this wasn't enough for me to remotely consider continuing the series. I know that this is a very popular fantasy, but it certainly wasn't for me.

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alexiab's review

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I haven’t taken this long to get through a book in a damn while, but I definitely think it was worth every minute.

I really love the world being built and the narration style was very fun - even if the footnotes drove me crazy and I had to start skipping them. There’s some killer twists that I didn’t see coming, and I had my heart shredded like 3 separate times.

Really interested to see where this series is going.

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hailie_lloy's review

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adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

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t4vs's review

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adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.0

"Never flinch. Never fear. And never, ever, forget"

I was kinda receous for reading this book. It is not the kind of fantasy i usually read (YA fantasy, this is a NA dark fantasy). It is gory, VIOLENT (emphasys on that, seriously, this is the most violent book i've ever read), it is not gentle, and definitely, not cute or pretty. It has a lot of blood, descriptive scenes, and i already said that it has a lot bood? THERE IS A LOT OF BLOOD. But, guess what? I liked it.

So, let's start on the things that i did like:
1. The writing style: never seen footnotes on a fiction/fantasy book. In the beginning i thought that they were annoying, but i ended up liking them. Saw a lot of people saying that this annoyed them so much that they DNFed it. It is not for everyone, but, for me, it worked really well.
2. The worldbuilding: Excellent. I'm serious, this is good. The footnotes add up to it in really good way. It has politics and politic organization, its own history, countries with culture and religion.
3. Plot: Woul i say that it looks like dark Throne of Glass? Eh, maybe. Yes and no, specifically. The "i'm an assassin and both of my parents are dead and i am being trained by a random man that is kinda of a paternal figure" kinda trope is similar to this YA series, but this is NA. But the plot it is still interesting.
4. The shadow cat, Mr. Kingly: i have to create a bullet point just for him and Mia's powers beacause they are SO COOL. You mean, a cat? That feeds from her fear? Yes.

And now, the things i did not like (actually it is just one, but that bothered me so so so much, and i hated it):
1. Mia's sexualization: I feel that i have to talk about this because in some parts it made me feel really uncomfortable as a woman myself. She is 16. A minor. And the way Jay Cristoff describes her in some parts... ugh. And don't get me started on the (cringy) spicy scenes. The opening scene is one. This is why this book is not perfect in my opinion. Really, what was the author thinking? That it would be okay to describe a 16 year old with borderline unappropriate adjectives? It disgusted me and i will not turn a blind eye for it. (Oh, and she smokes! wow how sexy and edgy)

Overall, that's it. It had all the things to be perfect and be a five star. If i ignored the Mia issue it would be a five star. But i can't and won't. What a shame, really. But, still, it is a good book with excellent worldbuilding and plot quality. Would recommend it? Yes, go for it, but be aware of the problematics of the author. After buying it i discovered the issues with Jay Kristoff and i'm alerting you guys too.

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sleepytessa's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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thecourtofreading's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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

4.5

"well all is blood, blood is all."

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vespertine_moth's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-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? No

4.25

I enjoyed this very much! I would compare it to Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, but by the end of the first novel you can tell they won't be taking the same path past the first novels in the series. The characters were very well developed with their own personalities, but sometimes they play one-note, however this is only book 1/3! The plot was somewhat predictable but takes some interesting turns you wouldn't otherwise expect! This book opens

with a sex scene, so if that's not for you take it into consideration! I was able to run past it very quickly but I would say that it was somewhat important. Other sex scenes in the novel I wouldn't deem necessary to read in full so they can easily be skipped

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oliverreeds's review

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

i didn't like the sexualization of the teenagers in this book. the writing is good; the narration is incredibly unique in a good way so the book only lost points in my book for underage kids being wayyyyy too sexualized. the book (in my opinion i haven't read the others yet) would be ultimately unchanged if the author had aged up the kids 4-7 years (or if they just didn't write an explicit sex scenes between minors)

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