Nevernight

4.5 stars! This review will be spoiler free! But first, can we admire how BOTH the UK and US editions of this book are gorgeous?!

Synopsis:

Mia Corvere is a darken, an assassin, and a girl with blood on her hands and revenge in her heart. After losing everything she ever had and known when her father was executed as a traitor to the Republic, she sets off to find a way to survive. And survive she did. She found her Shahiid. A master of the art of assassination from the Red Church who taught Mia how to kill. Still it is Mia's job to make it to the Red Church and pass their initiation tests if she wants to become a Blade of the Lady of Blessed Murder. It is a Blade she has vowed to become in order to exact her revenge on the people who took away her familia.

THIS BOOK IS NOT YA, I REPEAT IT IS NOT YA. NOT FOR YOUNG READERS. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.

Warning: if you are not a fan of bloody violence, colorful cursing, and/or very detailed sex scenes, this may not be the book for you.

Initial thoughts:

Before I read this book I thought I'd love it. When I first started reading this book, I thought I was going to hate it. By the end of this book, I was practically head over heels. What I mean by all this is: if you read the synopsis and my warnings listed above and this STILL sounds like your kind of book, then it likely is! You just have to get to the good stuff. The beginning of this book was so boring and occasionally confusing to the point where I actually had to stop and restart the book twice because I got fed up and took a break, then forgot what happened. Once Monsieur Don Tric showed up however, everything was so so so much better. The action is freaking amazing. Kristoff KNOWS how to write some high tail chasing. The romance was slow burn and complex, even believable, as believable as this world can be. The steaminess was so worth it too. It took me by surprise obviously as I thought this was YA, but oh my gosh it is NOT. Alongside the steaminess there's death to coincide. Kristoff was not afraid to kill off people. Broke my heart quite a few times. And then there's the whole mystery regarding the murders in the Church! I did not suspect that ending AT ALL. I was blown away and could not put this book down for anything by that point. This book could have almost been a standalone with the way it ended, but I love how open it was. Now I have no idea what to expect in the sequel, but I know I want it. Like... now.

The world building: (Nevernight deserves to have to have its own section for this)

I have to talk about this world first. This is probably the most well thought out, most well explained fantasy world I have ever experienced within just book one. The world we are in is very unforgiving, very ruthless, very “righteous.” The Republic is so immersed in their beliefs that they will do whatever it takes to take down the “heretics” even if that makes them hypocrites. Not to mention the complete and utter darkness of the story line despite the fact that the world itself is immersed in sunlight for 3 years straight at a time. AKA why every “day” is called every “turn”/ every night is every “nevernight” because it’s never night time. I love how interesting this world’s own religious history is. It’s polytheistic and almost mythological feeling, where they use the emotions and actions of old gods to explain why the world is the way it is. And we have the Republic who worship the God of the sun and the Red Church who worship the Lady of Blessed Murder who is also the God of night. Then we have magic, which is not so much that everyone has magic or everybody understands/knows magic. There are just two darken we know of at this point. There are the Ashkahi, whose magic is vast, but has its weaknesses. Then there is the magic of the Gods like the Library in the Red Church and small things like that. It’s not often you see the magic make an appearance, but it does just so often enough to spice things up. Just the way religion/history/government/magic all play together in this creation is absolute perfection. The only only only thing that I did not quite like, was that I couldn’t imagine the actual physical place. I had to look up the map while reading via Audible to see these places. I still do not know how the fxck this world is supposed to look. To this point, all these places literally float in my head as separate entities because I didn’t have access to the map from the beginning.

Plot: (I apologize for the lengthiness, but I just have SO much to say)

That opening was so confusing reading through Audible. I had to pick up the physical book to finally understand what was going on. VERY UNIQUE juxtaposing Mia’s first time having sex with her first kill. I honestly would have never imagined a book opening that way. So at first, when the whole flash backing thing kept happening, I was getting bored. I was tired of how often they kept popping up and seemingly having no connection to what was going on in the present sometimes. However, towards the end, I began to appreciate them because we got to understand her story along the way rather than having this one huge info dump of back story or this one long dialogue explaining her back story. Then, when the BIG back story reveals came to fruition, I was like WOAAAHHHH WHAT?!

The Red Church itself was very spooky. This is obviously an awesome read to reach for in the fall/Halloween time. The tone of how these trials are supposed to go are set from the very beginning. Mia is NO special snowflake. She will get no special treatment. She definitely has to succeed in these trials or fail or die. I made the mistake of getting super attached to everyone. Did not realize so many of my loved ones would die in the first book, but I should’ve known. This is the story of an assassin’s making isn’t it.

Also speaking of spooky, we have our darken demon “not-cat” which is this 2 dimensional cat made of shadows that has no face, but has a voice. Mr. Kindly follows around Mia and essentially eats her fear. This gives her a crutch that sort of allows her to be the complete badass she is because she cannot feel her fear. He is one sassy not-cat and he definitely adds to the comedic relief in the story. I absolutely live for the part that he plays in all of this.

Onto the ending! First, off there are a crap ton of plot twists this entire book. Things popping up here and there that were just like WOAH did NOT see that coming! The ending was the biggest plot twist of all for me. 100% was dead surprised when everything played out. If I thought Kristoff did a helluva job writing the initial Krakon chase on the way to the Red Church, well… that last high tail chase blew me away even more. Everything in the ending was high paced and left my heart feeling frantic after each page. I could not, for ANYTHING, put this book down. And the epilogue afterwards was the best ending and transition to the next book I could have asked for. I feel absolutely satisfied with the first book, but still want more!

Now I have heard that the writing for this book can be long-winded and poetic at times, occasionally not even making sense, but I didn’t not experience these things. I’m not the kind of reader that enjoys extremely poetic writing, which was one of my complaints when reading Laini Taylor’s “Strange the Dreamer,” but I had no such similar qualms with Nevernight. The metaphoric writing wasn’t too often or weird. I liked it, definitely added to the ambiance of the story.

SIDE NOTE: Also, I remember someone’s Tumblr post going viral about how Mia is a “real” assassin and doesn’t show heart. Utter bull shit. She does have a heart. You’ll see why. She has similarities to my favorite assassin, Celaena Sardothien from “Throne of Glass” by Sarah J Maas, as she does have special magical abilities, she is snarky and sassy and has a sharp tongue, not to mention she is very capable with poisons and blades. They also share similarities in how the government took away their livelihoods and their families thus giving them a reason to survive, to fight back, to avenge. You just get much much much more insight into how she became an assassin rather than in Celaena’s story where you just know she’s already a full blown assassin. I believe if you liked ToG, you will also like this book!

**Though I thought this Audible was pretty good and the narrator did a great job, I would not recommend using Audible for this book. It was too confusing with the flash backs and such. Plus I think I would’ve imagined the voices of the male characters to be different, at least Tric’s voice would’ve been different. You also miss out on the foot notes; however, I didn't read any of the footnotes, but I don't really feel like I lost anything in the story. I should probably go back and read some of those foot notes, now that I've finished. I could've possible missed something? Still, the story still feels wholesome to me.**

Characters:

MIA has such an intoxicatingly blunt personality. She has an ever-working mind and knows how to be manipulative when it counts. I love that she holds onto her conscience throughout her endeavors in the Red Church. If she didn’t I don’t think the ending of the story would have been as satisfying or as good as it played out to be. Do I secretly wish something happened with her and Ash though? Yes.

MISTER KINDLY is the best form of comedic relief ever. You wouldn’t expect that the most consistent form of humor in the story would come from a shadow, but here it is. I absolutely love him. I hope that we can gain more information on darken from him, but those hopes are looking a tad bleak.

TRIC has a backstory that I did not mind waiting for. The anticipation made his story seem more real and more endearing. Everything begins to make sense when you finally get to know him. I like that he's also colored and has his own culture different from Mia's upbringing. He also fell in love with Mia instantly and we knew it was going to happen. His brief glances of admiration and love were so CUTE. And though Mia noticed them, I’m so glad their romance didn’t play out immediately. They took their time, Tric definitely took him time with Mia *wink wink.* Those steamy scenes were so worth it.

MOTHER with her ever motherly face, make you wonder how she is even a killer, but man does she have a record of kills. I liked that with her, you realize why the weaver does what she does. To give people the faces that they can use to the utmost of their abilities. Which is why the Mother’s face is so warm and inviting. That is the face she can use the best to “mother” the assassins of the Red Church. She is also extremely unforgiving. Would not want to cross her.

LORD CASSIUS though not mentioned often, is exactly the type of man I’d imagine as the Lord of the Red Church. I hope we get to know more about him in the books to come. I’m so intrigued by this man.

SHAHIID SOLIS is a fucking prick. Just had to say this.

JESSAMINE is a fucking bitch. Also just had to say this.

Overall:

DYING FOR BOOK TWO. But I also do not mind taking a step back from this world for a little bit. The world is heavy and rick. The romance is not over the top and perfectly sub plotted. The steam vs. violence is the perfect mixture. The actual plot is full of twists and turns and the ending was so well written. I did not feel the writing was long winded or anything either. And I love the Red Church and setting. I'm ready for more from this author!

#nevernight #jaykristoff