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A review by erenreads12
Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual content, and Violence