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whenjessreads 's review for:
Darkdawn
by Jay Kristoff
I am so not ready to have finished this series. I’m not even ready to write this review, really. I’m just a large puddle of distress and adrenaline right now.
This series is chaos. A brutal combination of bloodthirstiness, smut and self-depreciating humour. If that doesn’t make sense to you, you obviously haven’t read these books.
Right off the bat, I should point out - if you don’t like violence, blood, gore, ridiculous profanity, or graphic sex scenes, this series isn’t for you. It’s messy and vulgar and very obviously written by a) a man and b) an AUSTRALIAN man, but good god, if it isn’t fucking hilarious.
Jay Kristoff’s narration is one of the most unique I’ve read, and the world-building draws heavily on footnotes. Because of this, these books could be highly polarising, but I found them so enjoyable to read - the history provided in footnotes gave the world so much more depth and kept the storyline clear of infodumps, and in Darkdawn (Book #3) the narrator breaks the fourth wall and starts criticising his own writing, which made me CACKLE.
The characters were impeccable. EVERYONE in these books is morally grey, and I mean everyone. Everyone also has amazing character growth - even the freaking moon has its own character arc. There’s so many complexities to all the characters and their relationships with each other, and you can’t help but fall in love with them all. AND THEN KRISTOFF KEEPS KILLING THEM OFF. My heart can’t handle this.
These books were never predictable, never slow, never boring. The pacing and plot development were consistent over all three books, and I still need RECOVERY TIME from that final conflict.
As much as I enjoyed this series, I can’t give it 5 stars - there was problematic cultural appropriation of Māori tā moko (facial tattoos), and I’m not cool with that.
But someone bring me a DRINK because I need it.