Jay Kristoff’s Nevernight is the first book in the Nevernight Chronicle.
In a world with three suns, darkness only falls every two and a half years. As the light dominates the sky, most people worship the Goddess of Light Aa, but, in the darkness, vengeful assassins worship the Goddess of Night Niah. Born as the only daughter of an Itreyan Senator, Mia Corvere was only ten when she saw her father hang as a traitor. After barely escaping a quiet, but violent death, she vowed to kill the senators responsible for her father’s death. She sought shelter with an assassin of the Red Church, an organization of assassins devoted to the goddess Niah. The assassin trains Mia as his apprentice and prepares her for the final step of her journey, training at the Red Church. she can best her opponents in the arts of combat, poison, and espionage, she can be become a Blade and Blessed Lady of Murder, leading her one step closer to exacting her revenge.
Mia Corvere is a well rounded character. She is strong and independent, cruel and calculating. She has a heart yet feels no remorse ripping out the hearts of others. For the first few year of her life, she had everything. She was the daughter of a wealthy senator and a loving mother. All of that changed when her father was hung as a traitor before her eyes. After barely escaping with her life, she vowed to kill the senators who lead to her father’s demise. During her escape she met a shadow cat she dubbed Mister Kindly. Feeding on her fear, Mister Kindly assists Mia in training to be the best assassin there is. Along the way, she meets others with similar revenge stories. These people temper her into a violent character with a strong resolve. Nevernight was a great read. Jay Kristoff writes the book in a beautiful prose that doesn’t appeal to everyone. It is full of expertly crafted metaphors and intense descriptions. Some people will fall in love with the elegant writing style, but others will find themselves annoyed with the complex ways of describing a single action. When coupled with the book’s initial snail pace, it is easy to see why some people dropped it early on. Unfortunately, they dropped it before the pacing picked up and the plot became extremely interesting.
Another thing that might deter readers is the excessive use of footnotes. Instead of cleverly interweaving the story with intricate world building, Jay Kristoff uses footnotes to interject witty comments, distracting tangents, and helpful information. While the footnotes give the narrator a voice that is distinctly different than the main protagonist, they can distract from the story. The beginning is particularly dense as the majority of the world building takes place there, but, thankfully, the footnotes decrease in length and frequency as the story progresses.
In addition to the dense prose and distracting footnotes, the use of a gifted school plot caused the pacing to vary even more. Borrowing plotlines from Mythos Academy, Harry Potter, and Finishing School, a bunch of kids attend a gifted school to learn and enhance their abilities. Sadly, it suffers from the same problems as all most school books. The author attempts to cram an entire school year into one book resulting in varying plot speeds. At times, it was a bullet train speeding through fight scenes and dead bodies. At other times, it was slow and monotonous. Some books attempt to offset this by killing off characters or add some mystery. While several people died, (it is a school for assassins) they did nothing to alter the monotonous feeling of the plot.
Contrasting the poor plot placing, the world of Nevernight is a beauty to behold. It is endlessly interesting containing a detailed religion, diverse people and interesting customs. This installment opens the readers to a expansive world, and future installments will hopefully expand on this.
Unfortunately, some of the characters weren’t as detailed. Mia’s class begins with twenty-eight acolytes. Very few authors can manage a cast that huge, so they single out a couple characters for development. Unfortunately, only two characters received any kind of character development. A lucky few of those remaining received one-dimensional personalities. The rest didn’t even get names. While many characters lacked depth, this book did not lack gruesome details.
Jay Kristoff was not afraid to describe horrible deaths nor was he afraid to write graphic sex scenes. Anyone considering this book should be aware that this is an adult book despite the young protagonist. It describes death in an extremely mature way and is not for anyone with innocence left.
I give this 451 page book 5 stars.
The Nevernight Chronicle
In a world illuminated by three suns. true darkness only falls once every 2 and a half years. In this life of light, many worship the sun goddess of light and goodness. Only the assassins of the Red Church worship the goddess of darkness in the shadows.