“Never Flinch.' A cold whisper in her ear. 'Never fear. And never, ever forget.'
The girl nodded slowly.
Exhaled the hope inside.
And she'd watched her father die.”
Ah, Nevernight, where the heck do I start? To be perfectly honest, I was really scared of reading this book. Although a lot of people loved it, a lot of people hated it as well. And when it comes to hyped books, I usually am the bad sheep. But I thought, to hell with it, I really liked Illuminae, and I am giving this one a shot. I watched Youtube reviews for this book, and the complaints were mostly about the long narratives and the predictability of the book, but I’m glad to say that I don’t know what in the world they are talking about. This book is amazing, and I have no regrets staying up until 5:00 am to finish it.
Nevernight is about Mia, who watched her father executed when she was only 10. Her mother and brother were locked up, and she was to be drowned, but managed to survive with the help of the shadow cat. Then she met her Shahiid, who trained her to be admitted to the Red Church, a school of assassins. This book is dubbed as having a “Hogwarts for assassins” and that might make you think that this book is magical and all that, but don’t be fooled. This book is brutal and bloody and descriptive. It doesn’t shy away from all the gore and badass-ery, and I loved that so much about this book.
“It’s quite a thing, to watch a person slip from the potential of life into the finality of death. It’s another thing entirely to be the one who pushed. And for all Mercurio’s teachings, she was still a sixteen-year-old girl who’d just committed her first act of murder.”
When I started reading this book, I was thoroughly confused. I didn’t get what was happening, and I didn’t get why there were paragraphs in italics and there were paragraphs that were not. However, after the first two chapters, I finally got that the story is told in the past and present simultaneously. I also had an issue with the footnotes like almost everyone else did. It took me away from the story, but in the end I learned to ignore those really long ones and only read the short ones. I didn’t think that it would take much from the story if I didn’t read them, so I didn’t. Other than these though, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
I think my favorite thing about this book, aside from the amazing story, is the tone of the novel. It’s very much brutal and gory, but it’s also badass. Not only that, but it’s sarcastic af, which I just freaking loved. Although it has a dark story, it never failed to make me laugh out loud. It made the darkness of the story bearable, and it added a nice touch to the story. I think the sarcasm made it more badass. I always love some sarcasm in any novel, and the fact that Kristoff was able to incorporate it seamlessly into the story added points in my book.
“Just so you know, if it comes down to cannibalism, you get eaten first.”
This book is exciting and entertaining. It had my heart pumping and despite the fact that I stayed up until 5 am to finish this book, I couldn’t sleep immediately because of all the excitement that happened. There were a lot of twists and turns that I did not expect, and they just blew my mind. Well, there were some that I suspected, but still. Not only was this book exciting, but it was also heartbreaking. I still can’t believe what happened in the end. It broke my heart, and I fould that I had to spend some time to process what happened in the last few chapters.
I don’t know, this book just completely blew my mind. I went to Nevernight not giving it much thought, but after closing the book, I am an official Jay Krisotff fan! This book is just what fantasy novels should be like! I still really don’t get why some people disliked this book, because I love it so much. Days after reading this, I still find my thoughts going back to what happened in the novel. Ugh, I need the next book, and I can’t stand the fact that I have to wait so long for it!!!!!
“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.”
