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A review by izzyreads13
Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I did not personally enjoy this book. I was drawn to it due to the dedication and because I knew the main character had a flaw that I could personally relate too however I found myself having a hard time empathizing with her and finding her character enjoyable.
Wren, our female main character is the typical heart driven protagonist and for a good chunk of the book, that’s all it is. We read about her impulsive choices and how they affect her and eventually when she meets the male love interest, who is supposed to be her enemy she talks down on him all the time. Which of course, would be understandable given the circumstances but the way it plays out is icky to me. There’s multiply points where the mmc, Hal, tries to prove himself or get her to understand that he’s not this big machine gun she believes him to be but she throws careless insults at him all the time to the point where I don’t even know how he ends up falling for her. Their love story was meh at best and even though they did share a bit of cute scenes within the last maybe 50 pages of the book I still didn’t find myself in love with their love story. I also had a hard time warming up to wren despite her “character development” mostly because it feels as though every other character in the book makes it a point to give her some heartfelt apology but she never apologizes as sincerely as they did to her and it just threw me off as she definitely had some “sorrys” to give out.
Overall if anything, I would much prefer a book about Una who is Wrens first love and friend in the book as I found her character more intriguing and complex in comparison.
Additionally the book was very predictable, I was never shocked or taken aback by anything that happened, I could’ve literally guessed how this book was gonna end but finished it to know if I was gonna be right and I don’t like the idea of DNFing books but I very well could’ve gone without reading it and wouldn’t have felt like I missed out on something. It took me over a month to finish reading this book when it takes me about 3-4 days to read other books of similar lengths and it just wasn’t intriguing at all. I had to push myself to finish it on multiple occasions and ended up skimming majority of the book at the last 100 pages.
This book also read like a teens book instead of the YA book it was marketed as to me, i feel like this would’ve been more enjoyable for a 13-14 year old who’s maybe trying to get into reading if we avoid the 2 instances where the book has those in intimate “fade to black” moments. Overall, it wasn’t my kind of book. The romance was hard to fall in love with, the main character didn’t connect with me at all and the answer to the mystery was clear from the very beginning.
Overall if you do decide to read this book I wish you the best and hope you have a great time doing so, it just wasn’t for me, however to some extent the side characters were worth the read as I previously mentioned I did fall for Una and Hal, just not wren. Happy reading!
Wren, our female main character is the typical heart driven protagonist and for a good chunk of the book, that’s all it is. We read about her impulsive choices and how they affect her and eventually when she meets the male love interest, who is supposed to be her enemy she talks down on him all the time. Which of course, would be understandable given the circumstances but the way it plays out is icky to me. There’s multiply points where the mmc, Hal, tries to prove himself or get her to understand that he’s not this big machine gun she believes him to be but she throws careless insults at him all the time to the point where I don’t even know how he ends up falling for her. Their love story was meh at best and even though they did share a bit of cute scenes within the last maybe 50 pages of the book I still didn’t find myself in love with their love story. I also had a hard time warming up to wren despite her “character development” mostly because it feels as though every other character in the book makes it a point to give her some heartfelt apology but she never apologizes as sincerely as they did to her and it just threw me off as she definitely had some “sorrys” to give out.
Overall if anything, I would much prefer a book about Una who is Wrens first love and friend in the book as I found her character more intriguing and complex in comparison.
Additionally the book was very predictable, I was never shocked or taken aback by anything that happened, I could’ve literally guessed how this book was gonna end but finished it to know if I was gonna be right and I don’t like the idea of DNFing books but I very well could’ve gone without reading it and wouldn’t have felt like I missed out on something. It took me over a month to finish reading this book when it takes me about 3-4 days to read other books of similar lengths and it just wasn’t intriguing at all. I had to push myself to finish it on multiple occasions and ended up skimming majority of the book at the last 100 pages.
This book also read like a teens book instead of the YA book it was marketed as to me, i feel like this would’ve been more enjoyable for a 13-14 year old who’s maybe trying to get into reading if we avoid the 2 instances where the book has those in intimate “fade to black” moments. Overall, it wasn’t my kind of book. The romance was hard to fall in love with, the main character didn’t connect with me at all and the answer to the mystery was clear from the very beginning.
Overall if you do decide to read this book I wish you the best and hope you have a great time doing so, it just wasn’t for me, however to some extent the side characters were worth the read as I previously mentioned I did fall for Una and Hal, just not wren. Happy reading!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Alcohol, and Death of parent