Scan barcode
A review by kingrosereads
Book of Night by Holly Black
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
I’m gonna tell you right now, I’m not sure I know what happened in this book. Look, I loved The Cruel Prince, like I mean LOVED it. It got 5 stars from me. And I think that gave me high expectations for this book (especially since I borrowed it from the library after weeks on the waitlist). However, this book wasn’t as great as it could’ve been.
This is a new adult urban fantasy with very minimal spice (mostly just hot and heavy scenes) and cursing.
Let’s recap: Charlie Hall is a morally grey character who’s a con artist and thief. She was trained to be one since she was about 12 years old and when magic turns out to be real, her job turns into stealing books with magic related secrets in them. Her sister, Posey, is obsessed with magic and tries to awaken shadow magic within her. Shadow magic is the magical system in this book. People’s shadows will “quicken” and then they’re able to manipulate their shadows to steal things or kill people (it becomes an extension of the person). After her own pettiness nearly gets her killed, she pulls out of the con game and becomes a bartender. She meets shadow-less but kind, Vince, and they live together. Vince is a good boyfriend, albeit mysterious and possibly void of a soul. Because he’s shadowless and that means someone stole his shadow which is apparently a piece of your soul. Posey reads tarot online as a job and spends most of her time looking up videos and articles about how to quicken her shadow. Despite Charlie’s efforts to stay out of the thieving business, shit hits the fan when an acquaintance gets involved with locating the Liber Noctem. It’s a well sought after book that allegedly contains secrets about Blights and was written by a Blight. A gloamist is someone with a quickened shadow and they must feed the shadow their own blood and dark emotions to keep its energy levels up. Too much power and blood, and too many dark emotions and you’ve got the recipe of creating a sentient shadow, known as a Blight, that will tear itself from its gloamist when they die. Then the Blight can roam the world and kill people.
Here comes the spoilers, darling.
So trauma is the key to quickening your shadow and when a Blight comes after Charlie when it thinks she has the Liber Noctem, her shadow quickens. She also discovers that Vince is not the mild mannered man he seems to be and he seems to be tied up with the murders and secrecy surrounding the Liber Noctem. Enter Lionel Salt, billionaire gloamist who attempted to kill Charlie when she was trying to con him as a child (though he doesn’t remember her). Charlie wants revenge and Salt wants to hire her to find the Liber Noctem. She plays along and discovers that Vince is Salt’s allegedly dead grandson, Edmund “Remy” Carver. Salt’s responsible for several deaths but has gotten away with it. He’s stolen his quickened shadow so he can become a gloamist and hopefully be voted on the gloamist governing body, the Cabal.
Charlie learns that Remy’s shadow had quickened when he was a child, which is much younger than any other gloamist. Since he was a child, he named his shadow, Red. Naming a shadow and thinking of it as a separate being increases the likelihood it will become a Blight. And that’s exactly what Red becomes. Salt uses Remy to instruct Red to carry out his dirty work from the time that he’s 13 years old. He and Red grow up like brothers and Red is even able to temporarily detach himself from Remy.
It’s ultimately revealed that Vince is Red and Remy was murdered by Salt. As Remy was dying he forced all his blood and energy into Red thus giving him a solid form that looked exactly like Remy. Eventually, Salt’s secrets are revealed to the Cabal and it’s revealed that he had the Liber Noctem the whole time, he just wanted to entrap Charlie and use her as a scapegoat when she turned up empty handed. But she found the book in his safe and was able to entrap him.
Salt’s then killed by his stolen shadow and the Cabal imprison Vince. The Cabal has decided that Vince will be tethered to a gloamist and become their new Blight hunter controlled by the gloamist. Charlie is able to convince them to tether Vince to her instead. Once Vince is tethered to Charlie he reverts to his shadow form and has no memory of her or what happened to Remy. This is where the book ends, setting up for the sequel.
Okay, done with the spoilers.
Just a few things about this book. It had a lot of potential and I love a protagonist that isn’t likable all the time and has questionable morals. The shadow manipulation is interesting, but I don’t understand the magic system at all. It seems all that they can do is change their shadow’s shape, sneak into places, kill people, and steal things. Like what else is there? I don’t really understand the history of the magic either or the gloamist hierarchy. I mean gloamist get automatic high standing in society for having magic but literally all I’ve seen their magic do is harm one another and whatever poor sap gets caught up in gloamist rivalry. The book is also incredibly long for what happens in it and the pacing is very slow. It didn’t really catch my attention until a quarter of the way through but then it just started to drag again. It gets really interesting by two-thirds of the way and I was actually able to read the book all the way through. Before then, I was just reading one chapter at a time because it was boring and confusing.
Like I said, there were a lot of parts I liked and there was a lot of potential in the book. I did laugh and cry and even had me on the edge of my seat for a scene or two. I’m not sure if a sequel is even necessary but I hope that Holly Black does a better job in the next book.
This is a new adult urban fantasy with very minimal spice (mostly just hot and heavy scenes) and cursing.
Let’s recap: Charlie Hall is a morally grey character who’s a con artist and thief. She was trained to be one since she was about 12 years old and when magic turns out to be real, her job turns into stealing books with magic related secrets in them. Her sister, Posey, is obsessed with magic and tries to awaken shadow magic within her. Shadow magic is the magical system in this book. People’s shadows will “quicken” and then they’re able to manipulate their shadows to steal things or kill people (it becomes an extension of the person). After her own pettiness nearly gets her killed, she pulls out of the con game and becomes a bartender. She meets shadow-less but kind, Vince, and they live together. Vince is a good boyfriend, albeit mysterious and possibly void of a soul. Because he’s shadowless and that means someone stole his shadow which is apparently a piece of your soul. Posey reads tarot online as a job and spends most of her time looking up videos and articles about how to quicken her shadow. Despite Charlie’s efforts to stay out of the thieving business, shit hits the fan when an acquaintance gets involved with locating the Liber Noctem. It’s a well sought after book that allegedly contains secrets about Blights and was written by a Blight. A gloamist is someone with a quickened shadow and they must feed the shadow their own blood and dark emotions to keep its energy levels up. Too much power and blood, and too many dark emotions and you’ve got the recipe of creating a sentient shadow, known as a Blight, that will tear itself from its gloamist when they die. Then the Blight can roam the world and kill people.
Here comes the spoilers, darling.
So trauma is the key to quickening your shadow and when a Blight comes after Charlie when it thinks she has the Liber Noctem, her shadow quickens. She also discovers that Vince is not the mild mannered man he seems to be and he seems to be tied up with the murders and secrecy surrounding the Liber Noctem. Enter Lionel Salt, billionaire gloamist who attempted to kill Charlie when she was trying to con him as a child (though he doesn’t remember her). Charlie wants revenge and Salt wants to hire her to find the Liber Noctem. She plays along and discovers that Vince is Salt’s allegedly dead grandson, Edmund “Remy” Carver. Salt’s responsible for several deaths but has gotten away with it. He’s stolen his quickened shadow so he can become a gloamist and hopefully be voted on the gloamist governing body, the Cabal.
Charlie learns that Remy’s shadow had quickened when he was a child, which is much younger than any other gloamist. Since he was a child, he named his shadow, Red. Naming a shadow and thinking of it as a separate being increases the likelihood it will become a Blight. And that’s exactly what Red becomes. Salt uses Remy to instruct Red to carry out his dirty work from the time that he’s 13 years old. He and Red grow up like brothers and Red is even able to temporarily detach himself from Remy.
It’s ultimately revealed that Vince is Red and Remy was murdered by Salt. As Remy was dying he forced all his blood and energy into Red thus giving him a solid form that looked exactly like Remy. Eventually, Salt’s secrets are revealed to the Cabal and it’s revealed that he had the Liber Noctem the whole time, he just wanted to entrap Charlie and use her as a scapegoat when she turned up empty handed. But she found the book in his safe and was able to entrap him.
Salt’s then killed by his stolen shadow and the Cabal imprison Vince. The Cabal has decided that Vince will be tethered to a gloamist and become their new Blight hunter controlled by the gloamist. Charlie is able to convince them to tether Vince to her instead. Once Vince is tethered to Charlie he reverts to his shadow form and has no memory of her or what happened to Remy. This is where the book ends, setting up for the sequel.
Okay, done with the spoilers.
Just a few things about this book. It had a lot of potential and I love a protagonist that isn’t likable all the time and has questionable morals. The shadow manipulation is interesting, but I don’t understand the magic system at all. It seems all that they can do is change their shadow’s shape, sneak into places, kill people, and steal things. Like what else is there? I don’t really understand the history of the magic either or the gloamist hierarchy. I mean gloamist get automatic high standing in society for having magic but literally all I’ve seen their magic do is harm one another and whatever poor sap gets caught up in gloamist rivalry. The book is also incredibly long for what happens in it and the pacing is very slow. It didn’t really catch my attention until a quarter of the way through but then it just started to drag again. It gets really interesting by two-thirds of the way and I was actually able to read the book all the way through. Before then, I was just reading one chapter at a time because it was boring and confusing.
Like I said, there were a lot of parts I liked and there was a lot of potential in the book. I did laugh and cry and even had me on the edge of my seat for a scene or two. I’m not sure if a sequel is even necessary but I hope that Holly Black does a better job in the next book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Blood, and Gore
Minor: Gaslighting