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0nessie's review
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Slavery, Sexual content, Death of parent, Torture, Murder, Blood, Addiction, Death, and Violence
lori_larsson's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This book is DARK. Like D-A-R-K dark. And bloody. And violent. I need to read a cozy fantasy now to cleanse my brain. It was good and the twist and turns were great. But boy oh boy was it violent.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death of parent, Murder, Torture, Physical abuse, Blood, Child death, and Violence
dragonaion's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
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? It's complicated
5.0
USA said it well,
"Harry Potter meets The Lies of Locke Lamora."
And from my 5 star review of The Lies of Locke Lamora, I say that Nevernight is absolutely a story-sibling to Lynch's work while standing on its own and is a fantastic read. I devoured half the book in a day and am already shouting at Amazon to "take my money!" for the sequels.
For those who haven't read Lynch's book (which you should, if you enjoy Nevernight), this is a story of the brotherhood (and sisterhood!) of thieves, love in the dark, knowing what the dark is, and how to walk in Her shadow. Not for the faint of heart, this is a brilliant magical fantasy that will remind you of The Elder Scroll's Night Mother and Daedric Prince Nocturnal with every word. It is brilliant, emotional, tangible, and had me almost crying at a few spots.
For those who haven't read Lynch's book (which you should, if you enjoy Nevernight), this is a story of the brotherhood (and sisterhood!) of thieves, love in the dark, knowing what the dark is, and how to walk in Her shadow. Not for the faint of heart, this is a brilliant magical fantasy that will remind you of The Elder Scroll's Night Mother and Daedric Prince Nocturnal with every word. It is brilliant, emotional, tangible, and had me almost crying at a few spots.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Murder, Torture, Sexual content, Violence, Physical abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Child abuse and Slavery
Minor: Sexual assault, Child death, Mental illness, Rape, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Excrement, and Fire/Fire injury
taliatalksbooks's review
challenging
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? It's complicated
3.75
Nevernight by Jay Kristoff is far more detailed than I ever anticipated. This world is robust, well thought out, and incredibly complicated in all the best ways. I wouldn’t enter this series thinking it’s going to be a quick read. This is 100% a slow fantasy burn, but it is oh so worth it. It is strategic, dark, and twisty, which you can only expect of a group of would-be assassins. Kristoff masterfully depicts the complications of religion, politics, corruption, magic, world-specific language, and overwhelming emotion, all within this first book. I’m really excited to see where this series heads in the next two novels, but this is definitely a “chapter-at-a-time” read for me. If you decide to jump in to the world of Nevernight, get ready for one of the most complicated and intricate reads you’ve ever embarked on. Truthfully, Kristoff is giving GRRM a run for his money in terms of the amount of detail packed into these pages, and if you don’t believe me, you’ll just have to check these books out for yourself.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Slavery, Blood, Death, Murder, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Torture
soso710's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Torture
edu_caldelas's review against another edition
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? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry, Torture, Blood, Murder, and Gore
Minor: Slavery
moonchild_cos's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Blood, Animal death, Death, Sexual content, Death of parent, Murder, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence
Moderate: Grief, War, Sexual assault, Medical content, Sexism, Gore, Sexual harassment, and Torture
Minor: Alcohol, Body shaming, Classism, and Alcoholism
whenjessreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
I loved this book, I really did. I was expecting some sort of mild YA dark academia (why did I think this? I do not know) and what I got was a punch in the face of serious fantasy. It was surprising, refreshing, and after the first 100 pages or of set up the pacing was great and the characters intriguing.
The excessive metaphor was something I liked, although occasionally I had to read a phrase over a few times for comprehension.
The footnotes that the author used gave me flashbacks to the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud - adding humour and small infodumps via an unknown narrator. I do find them slightly jarring when trying to read a story smoothly, but if that’s the author’s style, what can you do? 😅
From what I can gather, this book is either loved or hated. The author is Australian - you can tell - and that’s pretty representative of the how the Australian personality is received in general.😅😂 This book was also pretty strong with the male gaze, although it wasn’t enough that it made me stop reading.
The one thing I will point out as being problematic is the author’s representation of Māori ta moko, or facial tattoos. Though Kristoff has said he didn’t intend for people to make that comparison, as someone of Māori heritage (though that should be irrelevant), I felt a bit uncomfortable reading it. I think without this I would have rated a 4 😊
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Murder, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Cursing
Minor: Sexual assault, Suicide, Pedophilia, Cultural appropriation, Slavery, Child abuse, and Rape
night3aven's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
- Nevernight - review
Overall, "Nevernight" is a well-done book: excellent world-building, unconventional characters and with the characteristics of everything that could be considered a good novel.
But all these features remain only embellishments, trivial tasks carried out to conceal (often unsuccessfully) a plot without any spine and any essence, characters with banal motivations and flat characterisations, who appear alternative only to diversify from the prototype of clichés already seen numerous times.
The first chapters are confusing and it is not easy to understand what is happening. However, as you get used to the frequent flashbacks and pay attention, the plot becomes more comprehensible, despite some gaps and the use of neologisms that are almost never explained.
The side notes are interesting, perhaps present in excessive quantity but certainly useful for understanding the history and conformation of the world created by Kristoff, as well as the customs of its inhabitants. The ironic undertone present in the work (and often contained in the aforementioned margin notes) is at times appreciable and entertaining for the reader, but at other times uses a childish and almost stupid humour, breaking the rhythm of the reading.
For the most part the writing style is just trying to be really edgy and it always seems so uselessly melodramatic and so overwritten.
Some secondary characters although, even if poorly characterised, manage to be interesting for their strangeness and sometimes even manage to entertain the reader: I immediately think of Daniio the Fat (owner of the inn where Mia goes after her first murder and after the boat trip to Ultima Spes) , who certainly looks funny because of his speech and his behaviour and lightens the reading experience in a positive way, or the chronicler Aelius, a ghost addicted to cigarettes trapped within the walls of a castle and forced to work for his entire life as a librarian .
However, the character of Mia, the protagonist, is not particularly characterised, definitely sexualised and mostly follows the line of the classic 'chosen one' found in many fantasy stories, though the author tries hard to make her seem like an original and totally different protagonist from the others, sometimes even excessively so.
Similarly, the plot may appear interesting and the reading may be smooth, but the whole thing is simply banal and predictable.
An excellent addition, however, is the character of Mister Kindly (the tenebris, a cat made of shadow, who accompanies Mia on her journey and helps her along the way ).
Let's move on to the plot: undoubtedly the weakest point of the book.
The book is not bad and the world-building is certainly good, but the plot is trivially average (if not even a little below) and the author's attempts to magnify the story and make it an epic feat (which it is not at all) simply seem excessive and unnecessary.
Good, however, are the descriptions of the action scenes and the relationships between the various characters, even if they present numerous clichés and are quite marginal.
Great credit must be given to the final part of the book, in which the action scenes are well described and the final twist (Ashlin and Osrik are actually spies in the name of Itreya and fight against the Red Church ) is unexpected.
For better or for worse although, the protagonist always remains a teenager and is characterised by youthful behaviour, so there is no point in painting her as a heroine (or anti-heroine) with a jagged past. Our protagonist has suffered a lot and certainly has a strong personality, but her characterisation certainly does not go in depth.
Despite their poor characterisation, however, I find it senseless to eliminate characters with a lot of potential (such as Tric, who endures many misadventures, but apparently dies due to a simple, unexpected stab ) just because their ties with the protagonist are now scarcely usable or evolvable without repeating dynamics already seen.
Moreover, I found myself rooting for the villains several times in the book:they have certainly unjustly harmed and hurt Mia's family and many other kids and are not exactly positive figures, but compared to the Red Church, a group of fanatical murderers who are willing to torture their pupils and kill innocents; the Luminatii Itreyani, even if corrupt and cruel, almost appear as the heroes of this story.
It is also strange how Mia asks so many questions about the sudden deaths within the Red Church and questions its interest in finding the murderer, but accepts without great reservations the deaths of some of the Red Church's pupils and the inhuman torture to which all the pupils are continuously subjected .
The theme of revenge, as mentioned earlier, is the key theme (and the only real theme present) of the book:I only hope that in the next volumes (which I will probably not read, though) Mia will realise that fighting against the republic of Itreya and being part of the Red Church cause her pain in the same way. Perhaps it is necessary to accept the past, instead of becoming part of an endless war that will have no winner .
All in all, there is a very good basic work, but it all seems to be just a well-executed task, which follows the rules to try to attract the reader but which, in my case, has no effect.
It lacks that something extra, that hint of brilliance; no doubt the author can be creative, but overall, for a book almost 500 pages long, the plot should be beyond gripping.
But this is not the case in "Nevernight", where every detail is well constructed, but never justified, never motivated, where there is no logical engine to kick-start the plot, which, except for a banal quest for revenge, does not really seem to have much motivation.
The characters also appear to have sufficient characterisation, but which never dares, never attempts to go higher.
The style may also be fluent, but by the end of the reading one wonders whether this has really served any purpose. It is not a book with great pretensions, of course, but it should at least seem useful and sensible and not make me think it was pointless to read it.
I recognise the merits attributed to the author by many readers, and I also recognise that perhaps this book was not for me, but I still reiterate a lack of depth in the whole: everything tries to be embellished and often even manages to be interesting, but nothing more, because the core of the plot is absent, the cause that moves all the events unfolded is simply trivial and insufficient.
In "Nevernight", Jay Kristoff appears to be an excellent author, with an unusual and creative writing style and numerous skills, but it seems that his talents stop at mere aesthetic characteristics: there seems to be no real motive behind the writing of this work, which, minus the ornaments and pageantry, appears banal and dull, without really any good reason to be told or to be read.
But all these features remain only embellishments, trivial tasks carried out to conceal (often unsuccessfully) a plot without any spine and any essence, characters with banal motivations and flat characterisations, who appear alternative only to diversify from the prototype of clichés already seen numerous times.
The first chapters are confusing and it is not easy to understand what is happening. However, as you get used to the frequent flashbacks and pay attention, the plot becomes more comprehensible, despite some gaps and the use of neologisms that are almost never explained.
The side notes are interesting, perhaps present in excessive quantity but certainly useful for understanding the history and conformation of the world created by Kristoff, as well as the customs of its inhabitants. The ironic undertone present in the work (and often contained in the aforementioned margin notes) is at times appreciable and entertaining for the reader, but at other times uses a childish and almost stupid humour, breaking the rhythm of the reading.
For the most part the writing style is just trying to be really edgy and it always seems so uselessly melodramatic and so overwritten.
Some secondary characters although, even if poorly characterised, manage to be interesting for their strangeness and sometimes even manage to entertain the reader:
However, the character of Mia, the protagonist, is not particularly characterised, definitely sexualised and mostly follows the line of the classic 'chosen one' found in many fantasy stories, though the author tries hard to make her seem like an original and totally different protagonist from the others, sometimes even excessively so.
Similarly, the plot may appear interesting and the reading may be smooth, but the whole thing is simply banal and predictable.
An excellent addition, however, is the character of Mister Kindly (
Let's move on to the plot: undoubtedly the weakest point of the book.
The book is not bad and the world-building is certainly good, but the plot is trivially average (if not even a little below) and the author's attempts to magnify the story and make it an epic feat (which it is not at all) simply seem excessive and unnecessary.
Good, however, are the descriptions of the action scenes and the relationships between the various characters, even if they present numerous clichés and are quite marginal.
Great credit must be given to the final part of the book, in which the action scenes are well described and the final twist (
For better or for worse although, the protagonist always remains a teenager and is characterised by youthful behaviour, so there is no point in painting her as a heroine (or anti-heroine) with a jagged past. Our protagonist has suffered a lot and certainly has a strong personality, but her characterisation certainly does not go in depth.
Despite their poor characterisation, however, I find it senseless to eliminate characters with a lot of potential (
Moreover, I found myself rooting for the villains several times in the book:
It is also strange how Mia asks so many questions about the sudden deaths within the Red Church and questions its interest in finding the murderer, but accepts without great reservations the deaths of some of the Red Church's pupils and the inhuman torture to which all the pupils are continuously subjected
The theme of revenge, as mentioned earlier, is the key theme (and the only real theme present) of the book:
All in all, there is a very good basic work, but it all seems to be just a well-executed task, which follows the rules to try to attract the reader but which, in my case, has no effect.
It lacks that something extra, that hint of brilliance; no doubt the author can be creative, but overall, for a book almost 500 pages long, the plot should be beyond gripping.
But this is not the case in "Nevernight", where every detail is well constructed, but never justified, never motivated, where there is no logical engine to kick-start the plot, which, except for a banal quest for revenge, does not really seem to have much motivation.
The characters also appear to have sufficient characterisation, but which never dares, never attempts to go higher.
The style may also be fluent, but by the end of the reading one wonders whether this has really served any purpose. It is not a book with great pretensions, of course, but it should at least seem useful and sensible and not make me think it was pointless to read it.
I recognise the merits attributed to the author by many readers, and I also recognise that perhaps this book was not for me, but I still reiterate a lack of depth in the whole: everything tries to be embellished and often even manages to be interesting, but nothing more, because the core of the plot is absent, the cause that moves all the events unfolded is simply trivial and insufficient.
In "Nevernight", Jay Kristoff appears to be an excellent author, with an unusual and creative writing style and numerous skills, but it seems that his talents stop at mere aesthetic characteristics: there seems to be no real motive behind the writing of this work, which, minus the ornaments and pageantry, appears banal and dull, without really any good reason to be told or to be read.
Never flinch" A cold whisper in her ear. "Never fear. And never, ever forget.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Violence, Blood, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Torture
Minor: War and Vomit
emesfiz_28's review against another edition
challenging
dark
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Blood, Cursing, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Torture, Toxic friendship, Animal death, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual content, Slavery, Death of parent, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War
Moderate: Vomit