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A review by sharonrose
Book of Night by Holly Black
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Spiritually similar to Black's earlier CurseWorker series, <i>Book of Night</i> provides a well developed Urban fantasy with conmen, criminals and light romance for a more adult crowd. <i>White Cat</i> is so very close to my heart that it's hard not to compare these books, but BoN has some solid character work, decent twists, and a cool (though pretty "dark") magical world.
Some nitpicks: Posey felt less like a full realized character and more like a prop to give Charlie more of a life and I wish there were more concrete supporting characters beside Charlie and Vince (though I did love them)--the lack of them made the world feel a little thin, which is a shame. Also, I wish we saw a little bit more how gloaming just casually effected life. One of the things I love most about Black's writing is her casual world-building and I didn't see as much as I have in her other books.
However, this really was a fun, engaging read with lots of elements I loved so I'm not actually complaining. And if Black writes more in this world it'll probably fix my nitpicks anyway since I always tend to look at the Curseworker books as a whole entity not individual titles.
Some nitpicks: Posey felt less like a full realized character and more like a prop to give Charlie more of a life and I wish there were more concrete supporting characters beside Charlie and Vince (though I did love them)--the lack of them made the world feel a little thin, which is a shame. Also, I wish we saw a little bit more how gloaming just casually effected life. One of the things I love most about Black's writing is her casual world-building and I didn't see as much as I have in her other books.
However, this really was a fun, engaging read with lots of elements I loved so I'm not actually complaining. And if Black writes more in this world it'll probably fix my nitpicks anyway since I always tend to look at the Curseworker books as a whole entity not individual titles.
Moderate: Sexual content