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A review by enchantedfiction
Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff
3.0
Darkdawn is the conclusion to the Nevernight Chronicles following Mia, a trained assassin on her quest for revenge. She has newly been crowned the winner of the biggest gladiatii competition in all of Itreya, attempted the assassination of Julius Scaeva, stolen away her brother, and is back on the run from authority. Ashlinn has been found by a returned Tric, who has fought his way from death to be back at Mia's side. But there's a catch. He is to direct her on how to return Anais to the skies, and right the balance Aa upset so many years ago. With Scaeva breathing down her neck and the gods upset, Mia must find a way to keep her found family safe, exact her revenge, and restore balance to the universe. Can she do it? She'll bloody damn try.
I'm not going to lie... I had very high expectations for this when it came out as I absolutely loved Nevernight and Godsgrave. But like any book nerd I have a very long TBR, and it kind of got lost under other books. I then started hearing from others in the book community that they were disappointed in how the Chronicles all came to an end, and that made me pause for even longer. But I knew I would have to get to it sooner or later, and sooner won out. This book took me a very long time to get through, and I think part of that was in anticipation for when others started not enjoying it. At about the 80-85% mark, I had liked what I had read. There were a few things during that that I didn't care for, but I was willing to overlook them for the bigger picture. But honestly, the way it ended kind of infuriated me, and that is the only part I can seem to hold onto right now.
I had a hard time with the soft Mia that came through in this book. For someone who has "no heart" and gets her tickles from killing people, there were an awful lot of tears from her. A lot of her emotions were erratic and didn't really make much sense, which kind of irritated me. After all she had been through and how shit everything was, I thought by this point she would be a bit harder to break. I felt like her strong character that came through in the first two books fell really flat in this one.
The ending also didn't do it for me. With all of the other fight scenes throughout the book, I figured the final battle would be a lot beefier than it actually was. There really was hardly any detail of what actually happened, and it was over extremely quickly. And what happened at the very end just made me want to chuck the book on the floor. I can't really say what I wanted without spoilers, so I won't, but just know I wasn't happy.
I've been going back and forth what to give this since I finished it, and have written this review without actually giving it a star rating... I think I would say I would give it a 3.5 since I did like most of it, but honestly the end for me was unforgivable to be trumped by what I liked. I usually upvote on Goodreads when I give half star ratings, but I just can't on this one. It gets a 3 from me here, but 3.5 overall.
I'm not going to lie... I had very high expectations for this when it came out as I absolutely loved Nevernight and Godsgrave. But like any book nerd I have a very long TBR, and it kind of got lost under other books. I then started hearing from others in the book community that they were disappointed in how the Chronicles all came to an end, and that made me pause for even longer. But I knew I would have to get to it sooner or later, and sooner won out. This book took me a very long time to get through, and I think part of that was in anticipation for when others started not enjoying it. At about the 80-85% mark, I had liked what I had read. There were a few things during that that I didn't care for, but I was willing to overlook them for the bigger picture. But honestly, the way it ended kind of infuriated me, and that is the only part I can seem to hold onto right now.
I had a hard time with the soft Mia that came through in this book. For someone who has "no heart" and gets her tickles from killing people, there were an awful lot of tears from her. A lot of her emotions were erratic and didn't really make much sense, which kind of irritated me. After all she had been through and how shit everything was, I thought by this point she would be a bit harder to break. I felt like her strong character that came through in the first two books fell really flat in this one.
The ending also didn't do it for me. With all of the other fight scenes throughout the book, I figured the final battle would be a lot beefier than it actually was. There really was hardly any detail of what actually happened, and it was over extremely quickly. And what happened at the very end just made me want to chuck the book on the floor. I can't really say what I wanted without spoilers, so I won't, but just know I wasn't happy.
I've been going back and forth what to give this since I finished it, and have written this review without actually giving it a star rating... I think I would say I would give it a 3.5 since I did like most of it, but honestly the end for me was unforgivable to be trumped by what I liked. I usually upvote on Goodreads when I give half star ratings, but I just can't on this one. It gets a 3 from me here, but 3.5 overall.