Reviewed by sa090 on
───────────────────
Nevernight isn’t a short story, nor is it a fast paced story. Usually I’ll find myself trying to remember what the end game of the novel is going to be, because for the majority of it I’m spending time with Mia learning about the church and basically how to be a competent assassin in many many details that there doesn’t seem to be anything else that we’ll focus on afterwards. I like journeys, so this to me was a very interesting thing to read about. The best thing is that Jay Kristoff used that slow approach to expand on so many things in either the world itself, the assassin arts taught by the church or about the characters. For example, the book has chapters in the beginning where it’s told from two different timelines that eventually merge into one, by doing that we learn about Mia, about the Senate, a little about the world and about her abilities with the shadows if you will.
If there was one thing that I wish was better executed then it’ll be the world building, Jay Kristoff goes all the way with that like I previously said, but the way he does it leaves things to be desired. He uses a series of footnotes in every chapter that will expand on a certain thing but to actually know what he wants to convey in said footnote, I have to be redirected to the page that has it (I always read on iBooks btw) and then I find out that it’s mostly a general thing, it’s not specifically about the instance I’m reading about but just what thing X represents. The pro to this is that I learn a lot about his world, but the cons are that the story’s sequence feels disjointed (kind of like pausing to go read something unrelated sort of thing) by my frequent trips and it sometimes feels like it’s an unnecessary addition since the majority of the footnotes don’t add anything to what is being discussed. I wish that instead of doing it like this, the footnotes were better integrated into the story to have a bigger impact and value.
Despite the before mentioned con being a somewhat glaring issue throughout the book, the lessons and events sort of make up for it. The book is very brutal, gory and despite being “young-adult” is actually quite mature. This is honestly what I wished for before picking up the book, I don’t want an assassins story where everyone is on some moral high ground who will always try to be the better person, it shouldn’t work like that and the lessons + the competition makes the to be assassins a very morally grey bunch of characters. This made me really excited because it allowed me to see how the lesser talented individuals will try to remain in the game and show me how the more talented individuals really shine in certain areas. The characters are somewhat stereotypical at times but there are some of them that are really interesting to read about to either learn more about them or better yet to see how they’ll impact the story one way or another.
Our shadowy friends are probably my most enjoyable characters in the cast, the sass is so amusing to read about most of the time and it’s one of the reasons why I’m excited for the sequels. To be honest, I’m mostly content when it comes to the characters but there is one thing that really annoyed me about Mia when it came to a couple of them; I wished that she valued her position and herself more so than she valued friendships or moments of passion. When there is so much riding on a competition and a main character’s purpose in that position, there is nothing more disgustingly annoying than to see them willing to throw it away for stupid things. Mia is a well written character, don’t get me wrong but she still exhibits this in some way that it makes me really mad, I mean, sometimes I can try to see where she’s coming from, but in others I’m just sighing in annoyance. Makes me incredibly happy that IT happened.
The magic is very interesting as well, there are some abilities in this book that would be very convenient to have, although I did wish that they expanded on one of the abilities a lot more than what I got but since there are a couple more books in the series to read, it’s not a lost cause. There are also some bits and pieces of foreshadowing for things to come later which made me immediately want to pick up the sequel but hopefully next month. One more thing to mention here is that the “killer” was spoiled for me by accident so I couldn’t really try to figure out on my own, but from what I’ve read so far is that Jay Kristoff doesn’t make it too obvious which is always a good thing.
Final rating: 3.5/5
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 14 March, 2018: Finished reading
- 14 March, 2018: Reviewed