A review by bethanyangharads
Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff

4.0

I am so happy to be able to finally say that, YES, I have finished The Nevernight Chronicles. I say finally because I have been meaning to pick up the last instalment, Darkdawn, for the longest time. If you don’t know, this series follows trained assassin, Mia Corvere, as she seeks revenge on the people who killed her family.

The highlights for the conclusion of this series were the books within books enigma, Kristoff’s self-deprecating jokes about footnotes, and some pretty badass fight scenes.

The element that stopped me giving this book five stars was how many plot climaxes there were. You have a battle scene (which as mentioned, are epic) then dialogue, then the characters are off achieving another step in their pyramid scheme of a plot, and then fight again, aaaaand repeat. Whilst this did keep things interesting with not being able to guess what happens next, I did find myself finishing one of those climaxes, and popping the book down because I felt a sense of closure for that stint of the book. Then it got a bit hard for me to pick it back up. But when I did, I enjoyed it again.

Overall, will definitely recommend it to readers of books who love complicated and morally grey characters, anti-heros, and high fantasy (because there is a lot to keep track of). Lots of triggers in this series as a whole so please double check before delving in. Lots of murder, assault, violence, gore, dickhead father figure, self harm, suicide, PTSD, scars, nightmares about traumatic events… the list goes on.