Nevernight Review

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

Read: February 23, 2018- March 2, 2018

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 stars)

Buy from Indigo and Amazon

Borrow from the Toronto Public Library 

Summary:

In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?

My Thoughts:

The first page of Nevernight really set the tone for the book. You knew it was going to be  gritty and gory and full of murder. This book follows Mia's journey at the Red Church, a school for assassins, which is going to mold her into a Blade--the best assassin. As you may know, I’m not really into gore and violence (I'm a lover, not a fighter) but this book does it so well. It reminds me a lot of The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas. They are very different books but they both have similar themes such as a revenge plot, badass female character, and an assassin school. So, if you liked The Assassin's Blade definitely give Nevernight a try; you will love it.

The beginning of the book wasn’t bad in any way but I found that it had a slow start. There was a lot of information given and a lot of world building as well so it was a bit overwhelming. Jay Kristoff has created this enormous world which led to many footnotes at the end of each page. This was the reason the beginning felt like it was dragging. However, as I kept reading I found myself getting more and more intrigued and around the 70 page mark it started getting a lot better. For me, I just had to push through but after that it gets so intriguing and action packed that I lost track of time flipping the pages. 

Mia is such a great character. I really love this whole revenge plot and you can see that although she’s had a really rough life she still has her humanity intact. I love that she can be resilient and vengeful to those who hurt her but at the same time show pity and compassion and care for the people she cares about. I found it so interesting that her fear is what cripples her and that her crutch is her shadow cat feeds on her fear so that she can be fearless. It just felt real and human because I feel like a lot of badass females in movies or books have this kind of "I’m not scared of anything" type of attitude. Where as Mia, although she could be really cold-hearted and tough at times, she does suffer incredibly from her own fear. I'm excited to see how she learns to conquer her fear in the next installments. 

The romance and steamy scenes in this book were top notch. Even though I'm a romance lover, I love that Jay didn’t make it all about the romance. I enjoyed that he slipped in those scenes to break up the goriness and it served the book well this way. I absolutely adore Tric's character because he is such a wonderful person and did not deserve such a tragic childhood.

 I was in shock with all the plot twists. They are on a whole other level. Throughout the book, I was speculating and trying to guess who was committing all the murders. Jay did such a great job of leading me off the trail so I wouldn't figure it out until the reveal.

This book really amazed me, especially after that slow beginning. At the heart of this book, it delves into morality, our own humanity and what happens when we lose it. I cannot wait to read Godsgrave and the final book, Darkdawn later this year.  

Quotes I Loved:

Page 243: “The books we love, they love us back. And just as we mark our places in the pages, those pages leave their marks on us. I can see it in you, sure as I see it in me. You're a daughter of the words. A girl with a story to tell.” 

love, xena