#(i do intend to deliver on that promise if i ever sell a fucking book btw. i will do it.
Text
Not to be a damaged Californian but it's wild to me that in other places you can just like. go to a river or a lake. and hang out there. and swim around. and that's just allowed and encouraged. What the fuck.
#i know we have the ocean but you gotta understand that you don't really go to the ocean in California. you go to the beach.#and when you are in the ocean it is usually a fight all the way. it's freezing and salty and will bowl you over.#to be clear i love that but also like. sometimes i just want a swimming pool experience but not at a fucking pool.#i have been in a california freshwater body twice in my whole life.#if you had lake access you were rich enough to own and haul a boat.#like that was so foreign that I told my dad at like 15 that I was gonna buy him a boat when i sold my first book. this was a PIPE DREAM.#(i do intend to deliver on that promise if i ever sell a fucking book btw. i will do it.#my dad is great and he deserves a boat on which to fish!!!)
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
NeverDarkGodsNightGraveDawn
Never flinch.
Never fear.
And never, ever forget.
Oh shit, I flinched. Sorry. Can we start over?
I’m a huge fan of Jay Kristoff’s collaborations with Amie Kaufman - The Illuminae Files and Aurora Rising are some of my most favorite books ever - so it seemed weird that I hadn’t read any of Kristoff’s other stuff. I’d heard of Nevernight (it’s kind of hard not to if you hand around on book twitter) and I had the first two books on my Kindle, I just hadn’t read them yet. When I snapped up the eARC of Darkdawn and thought to myself: maybe I should actually read these and see what all the fuss is about. People on the internet seem very, very passionate about their love for the Nevernight Chronicle, after all.
Also, if there’s a nerdy bandwagon, I’m bound to join. I like to be included.
So - The Nevernight Chronicle! I just spent the past couple of weeks binge reading through all three books (yes, weeks, I’m slow, OK?), and...holy shit. Like. Really, holy shit.
There is a pretty basic litmus test I’ve devised to determine whether or not someone will like The Nevernight Chronicle. If you want to know if you’ll like The Nevernight Chronicle, ask yourself this: do you like Game of Thrones? Does all the gory violence, graphic sex, and foul language of Game of Thrones not faze you? In fact, does it - gasp! - lend an aspect of realism to the fantastical setting? In fact, do you have a Game of Thrones shaped hole in your life right now now that the TV series has ended and the wait for The Winds of Winter seems endless? Well, then, I’ve the book series for you, Gentlefriends! There is less rape, incest and violence against women in these books, too!
And if you want blood n’ guts n’ gore galore, you shall not be disappointed. Our protagonist, Mia Corvere, hardly goes five pages in any of the three books without stabbing or slashing or punching or otherwise causing someone some form of grievous bodily harm and/or death. While swearing. And smoking. And displaying a general bad attitude.
These books are definitely not for everyone. If you don’t like blood n’ guts n’ gore and foul language and snarky characters, then you won’t like The Nevernight Chronicle. That’s fine, you don’t have to read anything you don’t like and I’m not going to make you.
You’re missing out, though. Seriously.
So! The Nevernight Chronicle! The three books are essentially the tale of the roaring rampage of revenge of a girl named Mia Corvere. When she was ten years old, her beloved father, Dairus Corvere, was hanged as a traitor to the Itreyan Republic. Counsel Julius Scaeva, leader of the republic, then had Mia’s mother and baby brother thrown in prison, where they later died. As for Mia, Scaeva had her put in a barrel to be thrown into a canal, but not before his lackey, Justicus Remus, brutally murders Mia’s beloved cat, Captain Puddles. RIP Captain Puddles, you deserved better even though you weren’t a real cat.
(What I imagine Captain Puddles would’ve been like, had he not been tragically murdered by a mad Australian).
Mia, of course, escapes the barrel, with the help of a living shadow taking the form of a cat, whom she names Mr. Kindly. She takes refuge with a foul-mouthed, foul-tempered shopkeep named Mercurio, who happens to be a member of a church of assassins. Once she’s old enough, Mia heads off to join the Red Church and become a blade (assassin) so that she can acquire the skills to get her revenge on Julius Scaeva.
That’s the main plot of Nevernight, poorly explained and in a nutshell. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not big on assassin stories, but I enjoyed Nevernight mainly because both the writing and the characters were so full of snark. I’m willing to overlook a great deal if there’s a high level of snark involved.
Anyway! In the second book in the series, Godsgrave, Mia discovers that the Red Church and its cohort of assassins isn’t all that she thought it was, so she hatches the world’s most insane plan: she’ll sell herself into slavery, become a gladiatii, and fight her way to the ultimate championship where, if she wins, she’ll get a chance to murder both Scaeva and his partner-in-crime/frenemy, Cardinal Duomo, at the same time.
Of course nothing goes according to plan. Which leads us, finally, to book three: Darkdawn!
It’s tough reviewing the last book of a series if you’re not certain if anyone reading said review has read the first or second books*. I’m just going to proceed as if you’ve already read the books, because, otherwise, there’s a ton of shit I didn’t cover in those “in a nutshell” descriptions of Nevernight and Godsgrave. Like the whole Crown of the Moon thing, the conflict between the goddess Niah and god Aa, or the fact that Itreya has three suns and night only falls once every two and a half years. Or, really, anything about Mia and her Darkin powers or the nature of Mr. Kindly...
But if you’re already a fan and are desperate for some Darkdawn details, you’re probably already eager for me to just get on with it already.
Right-o, then.
So, with all the worldbuilding and anticipation Kristoff built up with Nevernight and Godsgrave, does Darkdawn give us a satisfying conclusion to the story of Mia Corvere?
O, yes, gentlefriend.
Yes it does.
It delivers all that and more. I wonder just how much preparation Kristoff put into these books because every lingering question you have from the first two books is answered. You’re not left hanging.
Yes, basically.
And, let us not forget, that this one of those series where the author promised on page 1 that Mia would die. And thanks to Jay “Meet Your New Favorite Oh Wait They’re Dead” Kristoff, there are plenty of moments in Darkdawn that feel as a little something like this:
Darkdawn absolutely lives up to all the promises made in the first two books - there’s plenty of action, plenty of blood and violence and tastefully written smut. And footnotes!** The book starts right where we left off in Godsgrave - no weird time-jumps, no flash-forwards followed by flashbacks like the first two books, we begin with Mia immediately after the Magni.
After the maps and Dramatis Personae, of course.
In all honesty, though, there’s not much I can say without spoiling everything. But if you’re a fan of the books, rest assured, you will not be disappointed. Everything you’ve been wanting out of a finale for this series you get. Answers, action, pirates, stabbings, sexytimes, pools full of a God’s blood, angry camels, undead ex-lovers, eye gouging, treks across the Ashkahi Whisperwastes, cigarillo smoke, Mr. Kindly and Eclipse bitching at each other, and, you guessed it, more stabbings! Because this is the grand finale of Nevernight we’re talking about. Truedark is here, people. Prepare yourselves!
You are in for one hell of a book.
Oh, hey, by the way: are you aware that the Nevernight Chronicle is not YA? Because, even though it’s very popular with the YA crowd and Kristoff does write other books that are YA, Nevernight is not YA. As Jay Kristoff will tell you, over and over and over and over and over again, it’s not. These are adult books for intended for adults. It’s why, when I go to Powell’s, I find them in the Gold Room, not the Rose Room. If you are an adult with teenage children and you don’t want them reading Nevernight, well, then, you need to do a better job of policing their reading material. You’re the adult in this situation, after all.
To review: if you don’t want your children reading certain books, whose responsibility is it? Mine? No. Yours? Absolutely. And if your kids start checking out forbidden books behind your back to read on the sly, well...that’s your problem. It’s not the librarian’s problem, or the bookseller’s problem and it is most certainly not Jay Kristoff’s problem either. Ask yourself: why does my kid want to read these books so bad that they’re willing to go behind my back? Perhaps its the allure of the forbidden combined with teenage rebellion?
Seriously, my parents never policed what I read, and I turned out just fine. In fact, the only thing my unhindered book consumption led to was a master’s degree in Library Science and a dumb tumblr blog. Don’t worry, neither of these conditions are fatal. I knew kids in Junior High who were reading Stephen King books and, gasp shock, they turned out fine. None of those kids who read It at that age started killing children in rural Maine while dressed as a clown. I’m sure most teens who read Nevernight won’t immediately start smoking cigarillos and run off to join an assassin school, either. Calm the fuck down.
Also, you should watch Black Books.
Back to the review - if this can even be considered a “review” anymore - if I have any complaints about the Nevernight Chronicle it has mostly to do with the world itself. How are there still colors? How can you have color in a world with three - three! - suns? How does everything not immediately become sun-bleached? I mean, with three suns there must be a massive amount of high energy photons pouring down from the sky all the damn time, and eventually violet and ultraviolet light will disrupt chromophore bonds and, well, bleaching anything of color. I mean, American flags on the moon turned into white rectangles pretty quick (before being destroyed by time and being on the moon, of course) and I’ve had to learn the hard way not to shelve books in front of my window, even though there’s shelf space right below said window and it looks real nice and oh shit what happened to all these books’ covers??
Luke Skywalker should be careful staring at those two suns.
Also, how would anyone still have milk pale skin in a world with three suns? Wouldn’t everyone’s skin be much darker? I mean, for all the time Mia spends out under the suns without a hat, she should have freckles. Or melanoma. In fact, everyone in Itreya should have melanoma. And white hair. My hair turns several shades lighter every summer. How can Mia have black hair? Also, having black hair in a world with three suns sounds super uncomfortable. Three suns? Jesus, I’m super pale and have a hard enough time under the one. I’ve got seasonal freckles. Seriously, they appear during the Summer then fade away in the Fall. I got sunburned just reading about Itreya’s three suns. Granted, I was reading the books while outside, sitting under a tree and then the tree’s shadow moved with the sun and I didn’t...
And! AND! How would anyone be able to see? How would you even survive being exposed to that much sunlight? How can albinos like Adonai and Marielle even exist in a world with three suns???
See, this is what happens when I start thinking of things in terms of science when I should just be like “you know what, it’s a story, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy it.”
Also, who am I kidding, Library Science isn’t a real science.
RECOMMENDED FOR: fans of violent, foul-mouthed teenage assassins who solve their problems by stabbing them; people who don’t mind a bit of gore followed by some smut followed by snark followed by more gore.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: If you don’t fall into any categories mentioned in the “recommended for” you should probably read something else.
OVERALL SERIES RATING: 4.5/5 (minus .5 for all those times you get your heart ripped out)
DARKDAWN U.S. RELEASE DATE: September 3, 2019
VERY ACCURATE MIA CORVERE GIF:
CAT RATING:
* Ahahahaha no one reads this blog, I’m kidding myself.
**All those bitching about the use of footnotes in the Nevernight Chronicle should check out Susanna Clarke’s amazing Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. She has footnotes that go on for entire pages. She has entire plotlines living in those footnotes! The footnotes in Strange and Norrell make Nevernight’s footnotes look like citations in a high school book report.
Also, if you don’t like the footnotes, go with the audiobook. The narrator (Holter Graham) manages to blend the footnotes into the narration in a way that kind of freaked me out at first because I just started listening to the audio, and didn’t realize the books even had footnotes. This is what I get for not even bothering to flip through a physical copy of the books before starting the audiobook at work***
***Inappropriate places to listen to the Nevernight audiobook: work. Especially during the scenes featuring sexytimes. I was wearing headphones, but still!
#nevernight#godsgrave#darkdawn#jay kristoff#mia corvere#stabstabstab#mr kindly#tric#ashlinn jarnheim#mercurio#the red church#itreya#niah#our lady of blessed murder#darkin#assassin#the nevernight chronicle#johnnen#familia corvere#julius scaeva
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
destyruasagita
destyruasagita
cannotthinkofanaccountname
Untitled
virtualcanine
IT’S ALL SO BRIGHT!!!
beechroof80-blog
Favorite Recipes
nicbagofunk
ARTificial.Cage