Book of night by Holly Black Book Pdf
The book of the night by holly black is holly black's ad**t fantasy debut this was advertised as a standalone
But I'll get to that this is an urban fantasy book and follows her main character charlie and she is a former thief that used to work a lot with glow mists low mists like gloam ist or like shadow magicians
So in this world which is really just our world, there's like shadow magic uh there are people that can like to manipulate shadows use her shadows to do things blah blah blah although
She is not a glowing mist herself she previously worked with them until she sort of got out of the game and then she gets sort of pulled back into things when she sees the aftermath of a murder and this also involves some stuff with her boyfriend who doesn't have a shadow because
There are people who have had their shadows taken and mystery ensues and everything goes from there so before we get into this number of trigger warnings number one and number two I kind of want to talk about holly black in general
Like my experience with her because I think that's gonna be important to know going into this for this book it's a little bit darker it's typical like why an author gets into a doll
So things have to be very grim and dark the trigger warnings for self-harm because that's a big part of the magic blood torture gore like general creepiness along with that and some implied s*xual assault molestation very very lightly implied
So as far as holly black uh because a lot of people are like oh people are going into this and not liking it as they expected cruel prince I have only read the curl print series by her and I only liked the second book in that series
So I went into this with really no expectations so first, off we'll talk about the world-building like I mentioned there is this like shadow magic which is really cool and has a lot of potential
However, I will say that uh one thing that I have a problem with holly black is I find her worlds to be incredibly underdeveloped but have a ton of potential she has a tendency to not really describe things
She'll like to describe certain things in a lot of detail and then important stuff like not at all she drops a lot of stuff in there and then doesn't connect the threads
That's true for this this is like a darker grittier you know urban fantasy rule but there's different things about like how the glow mist society is set up and she just like drops it in like she drops in a lot of use of like tarot cards
But doesn't really go into it and just stuff that I'm like you have the pieces here but you're not really utilizing them effectively there's even some stuff about like the different types of shadow magicians
I couldn't even tell you besides the ones that alter shadows like really what they all do and you would think that would be like the kind of important to know for the world next we talk about our characters
This like I mentioned is like a darker grittier story so with that typically we do have these like sort of unlikeable characters and unlikable characters are my jam I tend to love.
I had a lot of trouble connecting the characters in general charlie our main character feels a little dated to me she is this thief and I honestly like thieves
I love thief characters I do feel like thieves have been incredibly overdone in the last five years and just the kind of thief
She is very much given me Lila bard syndrome uh v.e Schwab's character uh with this like I'm tough I did bad things I have secrets and I'm just like okay uh it just was like a little heavy-handed to me
It left me like I would still pull for her but I just I'm gonna find her very forgettable I will say the most interesting character here was Vince who is her boyfriend
I almost wish that the story of them from his perspective because his like overall story is so much more interesting than as far as side characters they aren't like completely
They're pretty one-note most of the side characters are also very one-note and I will even say the villain is a little bit two-dimensional a little bit mustache twirling
A little evil for the sake of being evil and I think that he could have been way more compelling and had some opportunities to like really flesh stuff out
But it's more so like evil rich dude is evil and I'm like I yes um like but more I don't know I just feel like there's so much potential for her stories and she doesn't quite execute lastly we'll talk about the plot and like the writing, in general, I have mentioned
This is a few other places but there is something about holly black's writing that doesn't quite resonate for me I don't hate it like it's not where I'm like I'm never going another book by her because I hate her writing but like it just doesn't click for me
Again I find her writing and like worlds and things to be really underdeveloped um there's something about her writing that just like kind of rubs me the wrong way sometimes um it takes me a little bit to like get into
It also felt like the piecing of this for being such a short book it's only a little over 300 pages is really really slow at the beginning and it's like why are you taking so long to get to the point
So the mystery elements though like a lot of that once it got you to know hit stride was interesting um but again I feel like not quite as fleshed out I almost feel like she should almost make her books longer which I very rarely say
But like I almost feel like making her book so short is what makes the writing feel so almost stunted so the mystery elements um were pretty interesting
But there were also some things that like I did predict kind of which isn't necessarily a bad thing I think having some decent foreshadowing is a good thing
But yeah I did guess some things the last thing I think is uh of note is that there's a cliffhanger ending to this and people are now saying like oh she's saying
It still was never marketed as a duology it was marketed as a standalone and when you like look at it on amazon and goodreads as of the filming
If you go into this like it ends in not a sort of compact wrapped up the way it very much is a cliffhanger which kind of feels a little cheap from like a marketing perspective one
I really hate when books are marketed as standalone and they aren't like just don't market as a standalone if you're gonna do that um but also it almost feels like she's dipping her toe into an ad**t and seeing
If it like it works and if her book gets enough praise which honestly likes even if people don't like this book which there's been a lot of mixed opinions I still think she would get like a second book
So it just feels a little cheap where it's like well now they have to give me a second book because I have this cliffhanger people are gonna want another cliffhanger and like I don't know it just feels a little
Manipulative in like this like marketing kind of way like if you always knew that was a duology say that from the get-go and like market it that way anyway again I don't really foresee her like not getting a second book
She's very popular but yeah know that going in that like it ends on a pretty big uh cliffhanger even for me I mean it's not something that I'm like I need it now
But like the element that is the cliffhanger part is something that I was actually kind of interested in so then ending on that I'm like cool
So yeah overall this was fine I gave it like three stars there are a lot of things i don't like about it though.
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THANK YOU SO MUCH
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