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A review by bookishreveriess
The Night and Its Moon by Piper C.J.
1.0
The Night and Its Moon by Piper CJ ended up surprising me a lot–but not in a good way. I decided to read this book mainly because it was a female-lead romantic fantasy, and because it was available as a “read now” book on Netgalley for a while. Let me admit since now that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I went in with 0 expectations after seeing a few TikToks from the author herself talking about her characters and promoting her books and hoped for the best. Sadly, hoping wasn’t enough for…whatever this was. I ended up being let down and upset by this book and I had to drop it by 66% because I just couldn’t push myself to read anymore.
The main problem I had with this book was the writing. It wasn’t terrible, but it felt like the author tried a little too hard to fit into the high-fantasy genre. In other words, she went a little too far with the long paragraphs where she described the world, the characters, and whatever was going through their minds at the moment. I honestly believe that if this book had been 3x shorter than it was then maybe it could’ve been a decent book at best…but no. The second problem I had with this book was the fact that half of it felt like a fanfic for The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski–especially Cirilla’s storyline. I know that the author said at one point that her story wasn’t similar to the Witcher that it only used common tropes in the fantasy genre and that’s why it could remind you of the Witcher, but I disagree. After all, it’s not common for fantasy books to have a young girl with white hair and a scar that runs from the side of her face to her neck go away to join a group of misunderstood assassins that live and train in a mountain and actually deal with monsters and as mediators between the evil fae from the north and the humans. Nor is it common to have one of those assassin’s be a man that names all of his beasts the same way no matter what kind of animal they are that ends up becoming like a father figure to said girl. It simply isn’t.
Another reason I couldn’t bring myself to finish this book was Amaris. Not only was half of her story a Ciri 2.0 but I also couldn’t really care about her. Since the moment she arrives at the orphanage she is treated like she was a very important and precious snowflake that couldn’t be damaged or seen by the outside world. And for what? I really couldn’t understand it, not even when he magical abilities were described and what not. I simply didn’t care about her. I honestly think that the only thing I liked about this book was Nox. I still hate the fact that they allowed the author to show how her only POC at the beginning of the story was 1) basically a submissive servant for the matrons at the orphanage and 2) got whipped in front of everyone int he orphanage by a religious zealot in order to protect her precious snowflake from being discovered and taken away. Now, for what purpose did they allowed all that to stay in the book? Don’t ask me because not even I know. There’s definitely better ways to show the cruelty of the world they lived in and what not, and this was nothing but a problematic representation for a character that actually ends up being enjoyable and interesting by the second half of the story.
In the end, The Night and Its Moon ended up being a lot worse than I anticipated. It felt like a really long and boring Witcher fanfic, and I just don’t want to hear about it ever again. If you liked this book, then maybe you should go read The Witcher books! I'm sure you'll like them!
The main problem I had with this book was the writing. It wasn’t terrible, but it felt like the author tried a little too hard to fit into the high-fantasy genre. In other words, she went a little too far with the long paragraphs where she described the world, the characters, and whatever was going through their minds at the moment. I honestly believe that if this book had been 3x shorter than it was then maybe it could’ve been a decent book at best…but no. The second problem I had with this book was the fact that half of it felt like a fanfic for The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski–especially Cirilla’s storyline. I know that the author said at one point that her story wasn’t similar to the Witcher that it only used common tropes in the fantasy genre and that’s why it could remind you of the Witcher, but I disagree. After all, it’s not common for fantasy books to have a young girl with white hair and a scar that runs from the side of her face to her neck go away to join a group of misunderstood assassins that live and train in a mountain and actually deal with monsters and as mediators between the evil fae from the north and the humans. Nor is it common to have one of those assassin’s be a man that names all of his beasts the same way no matter what kind of animal they are that ends up becoming like a father figure to said girl. It simply isn’t.
Another reason I couldn’t bring myself to finish this book was Amaris. Not only was half of her story a Ciri 2.0 but I also couldn’t really care about her. Since the moment she arrives at the orphanage she is treated like she was a very important and precious snowflake that couldn’t be damaged or seen by the outside world. And for what? I really couldn’t understand it, not even when he magical abilities were described and what not. I simply didn’t care about her. I honestly think that the only thing I liked about this book was Nox. I still hate the fact that they allowed the author to show how her only POC at the beginning of the story was 1) basically a submissive servant for the matrons at the orphanage and 2) got whipped in front of everyone int he orphanage by a religious zealot in order to protect her precious snowflake from being discovered and taken away. Now, for what purpose did they allowed all that to stay in the book? Don’t ask me because not even I know. There’s definitely better ways to show the cruelty of the world they lived in and what not, and this was nothing but a problematic representation for a character that actually ends up being enjoyable and interesting by the second half of the story.
In the end, The Night and Its Moon ended up being a lot worse than I anticipated. It felt like a really long and boring Witcher fanfic, and I just don’t want to hear about it ever again. If you liked this book, then maybe you should go read The Witcher books! I'm sure you'll like them!