Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle, #1)

by Jay Kristoff

From New York Times bestselling author, Jay Kristoff, comes a dangerous new fantasy world and a heroine edged in darkness.

WINNER OF THE THE AUREALIS AWARD FOR BEST FANTASY NOVEL

Mia Corvere is only ten years old when she is given her first lesson in death.

Destined to destroy empires, the child raised in shadows made a promise on the day she lost everything: to avenge herself on those that shattered her world.

But the chance to strike against such powerful enemies will be fleeting, and Mia must become a weapon without equal. Before she seeks vengeance, she must seek training among the infamous assassins of the Red Church of Itreya.

Inside the Church's halls, Mia must prove herself against the deadliest of opponents and survive the tutelage of murderers, liars and daemons at the heart of a murder cult.

The Church is no ordinary school. But Mia is no ordinary student.

The shadows love her.
And they drink her fear.

• ISBN13: 9780008179984
• Publish Date: 29 June 2017 (first published 9 August 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HarperVoyager
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 480
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[Emma (SCR)]

This review was originally posted on Star Crossed Reviews I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Thank you to Harper Voyager for my copy of this book via Netgalley. I have seen this book everywhere and wit Darkdawn coming out later this year I decided it was time to catch up. I have this book on audible too and listened to most of this rather than reading the netgalley version.

I struggled with the beginning of this book. I had to re-read the first chapter or two because I found it quite confusing. The story flicks back and forward between now and the past. It took me a little while to work that out. It also wasn't clear at all on the audio that this was happening. It could have done with some indication that there were two timelines. Once I got my head around this it was awesome!

Jay has a snarky, humorous writing style which I loved. Mia is a badass. She is strong, brave but also underneath quite caring. On the outside, she seems like a cold-hearted assassin but underneath that armour, there's a heart that wants to love and be loved. Once her revenge is complete obviously.

There are so many good characters in this book. Jay has a unique way of making me fall in love with them. I don't think any other author has made me fall for characters in the way I do in this book. My favourites were Ashlinn and Hush. Ash was cool and funny I really liked her. Hush was an interesting character and I didn't always trust him in this book but I think that's one of the reasons I like him. You never knew what he was up to.

I don't want to ruin the story so I won't say much more other than it's totally awesome. There are lots of totally ruthless moments on Jay's part which makes you fear for every character. Jay also doesn't try to make any of it pretty, he tells it straight up.

I totally loved this book and I am stoked to move straight on to Godsgrave.

[abookishblether]

DNF @ 15%

This year began I trend of taking risks on young adult fantasy and having a string of four and five star sucesses. I should have realised that there were bound to be misses. It just didn't occur to me that widely acclaimed Nevernight was going to be my miss.

On page, Nevernight has so many things I love. Assassins, revenge, what sounded like would be a fast paced and twisty plot and everyone on booktube raves about the main character, so I had unknowingly built quite the hype around this book. I ended up DNF'ing this book on page 64 (around chapter 6) simply due to the writing style. I liked that the flowery descriptions, but I found them to be nonsensical at times. No matter though, because I think that about The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater and it garnered a four star rating for me.

On the first nine pages of the UK paperback, the phrase "O, [blank]" appears on every page at least once. That got fucking tiring, really quickly. The narrator talked to the reader, and referenced the reader like an audience calling them "gentlefriends". The footnotes felt unnecessary to the story, and gave the writing a smary feel to it. I have enjoyed books with footnotes before when I read the Bartimaeus Trilogy as a kid/teen, but I ended up skipping these ones. I just generally couldn't truck with the style of writing, and I'm really disappointed because this would have probably been a four star read for me otherwise.

[alindstadtcorbeax]

✨Star Rating: FIVE (5) Stars ✨

😱
... RTC; NO WORDS ATM

Well, except for one...

GODSGRAVE

[Nessa Luna]

DNF for now... I just really cannot get myself to enioy anything I’m reading... maybe I’m going to try an audiobook, but for now I’m not going to finish this book.

[Chelsea]

Now that I've got my thoughts in order I can review this wonderful book!

I had a feeling that I was going to love this one but I was nervous because of all the hype. I didn't want to be disappointed. I'm glad I waited a little bit to read it though, I think it helped.

This book started off too slow for me. The first couple chapters switched from two different perspectives of the same person but different times. I was SO confused until about chapter 4 where I finally figured out what was going on. That was probably the only bad thing about this book though. Once you a few chapters in it's less confusing but it's still a teeny bit slow until our characters make their way to the super scary school of assassins.

Too often the middle section of a book gets boring. I was glad to see this is where Nevernight picked up the pace and sucked me in. I loved the idea of the kids working on winning their different tests but it was impossible to tell which person was going to win which one. Just when you thought you had it figured out, half of them die and you're left clueless again. It was fantastic! I'm always looking for book that will surprise me!

Now the ending. My poor heart could hardly take it. Just when it's starting to take a sad turn BAM all hell breaks lose and there's action everywhere! Almost everyone is dead and the characters you trusted are horrible and you have no idea what's happening anymore! It was beautiful. I was so lost in the action that I hardly realized the book had ended. It was that addicting!

Mia was a great main character to follow. She made mistakes but she really did learn from them and used them to her advantage even. She was one smart cookie (though not smart enough to figure out who was betraying her!). I also thought Mister Kindly was great, though maybe not as nice as he leads us to believe... There's a lot of what ifs happening at the end of this book.

I also wanted to say a quick note about the writing style. Holy geez it was beautiful! I've noticed that a lot of authors who have the pretty writing figured out lack in character development or plot building but that wasn't the case here and I was SO thankful for that! Finally a book which gorgeous writing that's actually good! I'm really looking forward to the sequel!

[wyvernfriend]

I recommend this read, Mia was a great character and the unnamed narrator was quite funny, the footnotes make this quite excellent.

[ross91]

At first I wasn't really sure I would have liked this book... but after a few chapters I was totally hooked! The writing style is not easy to get into, but I promise it gets better!
If you know me a little you know that I'm a huge fantasy reader, but I'm also very particular with the books I like and Nevernight falls in a sub-genre which I personally love and which I called the "assassin/thief-apprentice-in-an-italian-like-setting". One of my very favorite book belongs in this sub-genre (Locke Lamora, I'm looking at you!), and another one is not as great but it's still very enjoyable (somebody said "Six of Crows"?).
I found Nevernight a mix between Locke Lamora, The way of shadows and Blood Song and it was GLORIOUS.
And now we wait of book 2...

[bestmessever]

This book is an absolute masterpiece. The citation/footnote things are some of my favorite in the book. It's so witty and different and fascinating. I love how frank it is, how it doesn't shy away from anything. It just tells it like it is. Which is a refreshing change of pace. The sarcasm in this book was spot on and I just can't even praise it enough. Everyone should read this book (as long as you're about 15+ I would say) because this book is pretty gory and vulgar sometimes. It doesn't try to charm it's readers and that in itself is a charm of this book. I might edit this later after I've thought about it some more cause I just finished it but just....wow. My hat is off to you Mr. Kristoff.

BLOOD! GORE! DEATH! STABBINESS! Did I mention death? YAAAAAASSSSSS!
Full review coming soon.

[Beth C.]

I have been a fan of Kristoff since I read an arc of his first book, "Stormdancer". I have happily read every book of his since then, and when he announced that "Nevernight" was coming, I pre-ordered not one, but TWO different copies (One from the U.K., because seriously – their covers are SO. MUCH. COOLER.). And now that I’ve read the book, I can absolutely attest to the fact that Kristoff is a whiz at world- and character-building.

The book is written by a mysterious narrator who only tells the reader that he/she knew Mia – the REAL Mia, not the one told of in stories. This narrator loved her, and though Mia is dead, the record should be set straight. No spoilers here – this is the first page of the book, and we learn that the narrator will tell it true, even when the truth is nasty and dirty. From there, the story is told in alternating present as Mia attempts to gain entrance into the Red Church school of assassins, and the past, where we learn what happened to her and how she became the girl she is. A definite strength in this book are the characters – layers upon layers of truth and lies within them, as we humans tend to be. When several of those characters are also working to become assassins, the layers multiply exponentially until the truth and the lies begin to blur together.

The world-building is also excellent. This place that seems so much like Venice might have way back when, but with lakes of blood to travel through and monsters that attack from the sand, gods that not only exist but bless their favorites, and sorcerii that can weave a body back together. Shadows that “live” and a city built around the bones of a dead god. It’s incredible how it all weaves together into a seamless whole, where the world is almost a character of its own.

"Nevernight" is graphic and brutal - but it never feels gratuitous. It simply *is*, much like Mia. The only downside that I had were the massive amounts of footnotes. At times, it felt more distracting than like it actually added anything to the story. That, however, is a minor quibble. Overall, "Nevernight" will probably end up in my top 5 list of all books read this year. It's just that good. It's a pleasure to watch Kristoff continue to get better and better, and I look forward to whatever machinations he may have up his sleeve in the future!