Nevernight was a book that I went into not knowing fully what to expect. I knew that I love Jay Kristoff and that his latest book promised to be action-packed and irresistible, which it was. But beyond that I wasn’t sure what I’d find in its pages.
This book was complicated for me. Jay has an addicting writing style, and the plot of Nevernight is incredibly detailed and full of revenge. Mia is basically a cross between Inigo Montoya and Lila Bard, only with an even greater desire to burn down the world in order to take out her revenge on those who once hung her father for treason and imprisoned her family when she was a child.
She wants to become an assassin for the “Mother of Murder” but is forced to compete against other would-be assassins for a coveted spot in the order. Will she survive her initiation? I won’t spoil it for you, but you should know that Mia is determined as all get out and just about the most unflinching heroine I’ve ever read about.
The world-building is INTENSE. I’ll admit that it took me a while to really get into what was going on – the details are parceled up and handed out throughout the book, so you have to piece it all together as you go, which I think some people might find confusing (I sure did). Luckily, Jay has created such a crazy out-of-this-world setting that it kept me interested in finding out how all the pieces fit together. There is a very complex mythology here that demands further exploration and really sets the stage for this book to jump off into a full series.
The narrator is another unconventional element here. The narrator’s voice reminded me a lot of Death narrating The Book Thief, and since I LOVED the way that narrator told the story I found myself feeling nostalgic and enjoying the strange way this narrator told Mia’s story. In fact, one of my favorite parts of the whole book was the epilogue. The narrator has a poetic style that really carried me through the story and left me eager for more when I turned the final page.
That, coupled with the fact that Mia is a BA heroine the likes of which I’ve rarely seen before, make me think that this is going to be a book that people fall in love with. Unfortunately, my biggest complaint is the very reason I probably won’t be able to continue this series in the future… This book is GRAPHIC. Like, we’re talking explicit sex and mega-violence and I just don’t do very well under those conditions. I am the biggest pansy of them all when it comes to graphic and gratuitious sex and violence in my books. I don’t see a problem with other people enjoying those sorts of things in their reads, and I certainly don’t believe that a book should be banned because of them or that authors should be forced to write a certain way or censor themselves, but the honest truth is lots of sex and violence is hard for me to read. I can stomach each to some extent, but Nevernight really pushes both to their limits and beyond. There are some scenes that were incredibly hard for me to get through, and while I really do think this is a VERY COMPELLING story that people are going to fall over themselves to get their hands on, in the end I don’t think this series is for me. Hence the four star rating.
But, seriously, guys, the story is so good that even I pushed through the scenes that weren’t to my taste to get to the end. So, if you’re looking for something gritty and compelling, with a very interesting and entirely original world to immerse yourself in, this is definitely the book for you.
Be sure to head over to my instagram account and enter my giveaway for a chance to win an ARC of NEVERNIGHT before its release!
Rating: 4/5 stars
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