Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
Ok, onto the book Rachel and stop gushing! Nevernight is the first book in the Nevernight Chronicles which is a trilogy. I am a little late jumping on this band wagon as the final book is due to be released next month. I guess one good thing about being late to read it is that i already have Godsgrave (book 2) as mentioned earlier and will be able to pick up a copy of the final book next month. I am ashamed that it took me so long to read this as ive even read Aurora Rising which Jay co-authored and it came out earlier this year. I had a bit of a rocky start with this one, i took it out from the library a few months ago and couldnt even get past the first page, the writing wasnt for me. It read like a poem that kept repeating itself and i put it down thinking the whole book would be like that, how simple minded of me! Fast forward a few months and my amazing bookish friend on IG (Steffimariareads, hit her up cos shes awesome) had bought and started it. She convinced me to give it another chance which i did and the rest is history.
This book follows Mia Covere who at the beginning of the story (no spoilers of course) she witnesses her father being hanged for treason, her lifes goal from that point onwards is to find the men responsible for his death and kill them. She then joins the Red Church which is basically a school that trains the pupils on how to be deadly assassins known as the Blades. Mia also has the added ability to control shadows which is pretty badass IMO. Along with Mias ability she has a shadow cat called Mr Kindly who was easily one of my favourite parts of the book, he is so snarky but the way he protects and looks after Mia is very endearing. The banter between them was genuinely hilarious for the most part.
This book gave me serious Red Sister by Mark Lawrence vibes which i read in June/July as it also has a school for badass assassins. The writing is very close to flawless, it was so descriptive but in the best way as you can really imagine the world and the characters in your mind as you are reading. Nevernight has joined the ranks as one of favourite books that ive read this year (out of 109 so far) and not only that it is one of my favourite books of all time. I loved how the footnotes added an element of comedy to this serious natured book, after following Jays twitter i can confirm the man is a comedic genius.
I have seen quite a few people shelve this book as young adult of goodreads, it is very much an adult book. This book has some of the best sex scenes ever written in a fantasy novel and Kristoff certainly didnt shy away from that kind of content, man can he write! Theres also a lot of gory scenes, some scenes really shocked me and i dont shock easily!
Overall this was a fantastic read and one that will stay with me a long time, i can imagine myself rereading this a lot and thats not something i say so soon after finishing a book which i can only take as a positive sign. I am now a fully fledged member of the Jay Kristoff fan club and i will auto buy anything he writes in the future.
