Review: Darkdawn

Title: Darkdawn

Series: Nevernight Chronicles #3

Author: Jay Kristoff

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Blood (extreme), death, death of children, death of parent, violence, gore, body horror, bury your gays, infidelity (brief), sexual content (explicit)

Spoiler Warning: This book is third in a series, and reading beyond this point will definitely expose you to spoilers of the previous Nevernight Chronicles books.

Back Cover:

The greatest games in Godsgrave’s history have ended with the most audacious murders in the history of the Itreyan Republic.

Mia Corvere, gladiatii, escaped slave and infamous assassin, is on the run. Pursued by Blades of the Red Church and soldiers of the Luminatii legion, she may never escape the City of Bridges and Bones alive. Her mentor Mercurio is now in the clutches of her enemies. Her own family wishes her dead. And her nemesis, Consul Julius Scaeva, stands but a breath from total dominance over the Republic.

But beneath the city, a dark secret awaits. Together with her lover Ashlinn, brother Jonnen and a mysterious benefactor returned from beyond the veil of death, she must undertake a perilous journey across the Republic, seeking the final answer to the riddle of her life. Truedark approaches. Night is falling on the Republic for perhaps the final time.

Can Mia survive in a world where even daylight must die?

Review:

The first two books in this series were bloody, violent, and fun. They’re not the kind of thing anyone would describe as a literary masterpiece, but if you like your fluff reading on the gory side, they’re quite entertaining. This one went off that track quite a bit.

That’s not to say it wasn’t violent or bloody, because it was. But it was very much toned down (although with this series, “toned down” still puts it in the “very gory” category). Darkdawn was much more about mythology and gods, why darkin are the way they are, the nature of family, and the complexities of father-daughter relationships.

Normally I love cool stuff about gods and fantasy religions, so it’s weird for me to say I didn’t like it as much, but I didn’t. I was expecting something high-energy and brutal, not too complex, and focusing on Mia’s goal to murder these specific people as well as anyone who gets in her way. Instead there are god squabbles and Chosen One save-the-world stuff and everything and everyone trying to convince Mia to give up the revenge she’s spent the past decade working towards and suddenly be altruistic and self-sacrificing. It just wasn’t realistic. On top of that, the gods weren’t all that interesting, I strongly dislike love triangles, the Absurdly Powerful Protagonist trope that I loved from previous books was nearly absent, and the climactic fight was boring more than anything.

I did finish it, and though the tone of this review may indicate otherwise, it was engaging enough that I overall enjoyed the reading experience. It was just a dramatic departure from the core of the previous two books, going from Mia’s personal bloody revenge to fate-of-the-world deity shenanigans. It felt like a low-energy, large-scope ending to a high-energy, small-scope story.

This isn’t a bad book, and I didn’t hate it. I just had hoped for the conclusion to the action-packed, violent delight of the Nevernight trilogy to be different, and I guess a little more, than it is.

The Nevernight Chronicle:

1. Nevernight
2. Godsgrave
3. Darkdawn

Review: Snow, Glass, Apples

Title: Snow, Glass, Apples

Authors: Neil Gaiman (writer), Colleen Doran (illustrator)

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of parent, gore, sexual content, nudity, body horror, sexual content involving minors, self-harm, incest (mentions), necrophilia

Back Cover:

A chilling fantasy retelling of the Snow White fairy tale by New York Times bestselling creators Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

A not-so-evil queen is terrified of her monstrous stepdaughter and determined to repel this creature and save her kingdom from a world where happy endings aren’t so happily ever after.

Review:

A long time ago, I read a Tumblr post that went something along the lines of, “If Snow White really had lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as snow, she would look absolutely terrifying.” This graphic novel takes that idea and runs with it. Snow White is not an innocent beautiful child victimized by her jealous and cruel stepmother. Snow White is a beautiful monster hunted by a queen who wants to protect her people.

This story is short and gorgeous and terrifying. The art is amazing, a folk style that manages to be dark and terrifying while using bright and vibrant colors. It’s vivid and beautiful and brings the hopeless terror of this story to life. This is not a story for children.

The story is so short that saying too much would be a spoiler, but it’s definitely worth reading. It’s a twisted fairy tale done beautifully, the horrible and bloody story of a terrified queen who fights back against the monstrous princess to protect her people. It’s short but it doesn’t need to be longer. The horror seeps through just fine as it is.

The combination of the story and the artwork makes Snow, Glass, Apples striking and memorable. It is definitely worth the half hour (or less) it will take to read it.

Review: Godsgrave

Title: Godsgrsave

Series: The Nevernight Chronicle #2

Author: Jay Kristoff

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death (graphic), blood (graphic), gore (graphic), violence (graphic), death of children (graphic), death of parents (graphic), slavery (graphic), torture, needles, sexual content (explicit)

Spoiler Warning: Reading past this point will expose you to minor spoilers of the first book in the series, Nevernight.

Back Cover:

Mia Corvere has found her place among the Blades of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, but many in the Red Church hierarchy think she’s far from earned it. Plying her bloody trade in a backwater of the Republic, she’s no closer to ending the men who destroyed her familia; in fact, she’s told directly that Consul Scaeva is off limits. But after a deadly confrontation with an old enemy, Mia’s suspicions about the Red Church’s true motives begin to grow.

Review:

This is a very different sort of book than what I’ve been reading lately. Most of my recent reads are deep and intense and full of Themes and Meaningful Motifs and are About Important Things – even Sir Terry Pratchett’s books have depth and insight between the witty quips – but this book has none of those. No depths, no themes, just a girl who goes rogue from her assassin church to pursue her own revenge and the people she kills along the way. It’s a piece of mindless fluff for people who like their fluff to be unstoppably violent.

That’s not to say it’s entirely simplistic. The plot does have a few twists and new revelations, but they’re mainly towards the end. This story is about blood – in the metaphorical sense with Mia trying to avenge her family, but also in the very literal sense. People are injured and die in bloody, gory ways, and usually because Mia got a blade or two into them.

Mia herself is getting more interesting as a character. Her single-minded dedication to murdering her family’s killers is starting to get in the way at times, and she has to make choices between the revenge she’s been working towards and the friends she’s starting to make. Plus she’s picked up a new unexpected ally who turns out to be a little bit more. Also, she’s female, small, and pretty, so no one expects her to be a good fighter, but she is very very good at violence, and I absolutely adore the trope of the underestimated person being The Best. Every single time Mia was in the arena was a bloody, violent treat.

This book is most definitely not perfect. There’s an unnecessary sex scene at the beginning (and a few more slightly less unnecessary but still unenjoyable sex scenes later on). Either I misread something or there’s a glaring plot hole in the climax (I was reading this as an audiobook at work, so it’s very possible I just misread something). Just like book one, it was very overwritten, but I didn’t mind nearly as much as an audiobook – the “bard telling about past events” idea works better narrated than read, I think. The world is a bit of a mess, with a few cool details (a city carved out of the bones of a dead giant, a world with three suns so it’s almost never night, people like Mia who can work with shadows) and the majority of the world painted with broad brushstrokes of jarringly different flavors – Ancient Greek predominated in this book because of the gladiator thing, but I also got some hints of Spanish and Arthurian England too. And of course, there are absolutely over-the-top gratuitous levels of violence. This series is hands-down the most violent thing I’ve ever read.

But it was very easy to catch up on the gist of what happened previously (a good thing since I read book one over a year ago), the characters are nuanced enough, and the plot kept me interested. This is not a book you’re supposed to think a lot about. Like I said, it’s fluff for people who prefer their fluff to be bloody and violent. I did enjoy it, and I’ll probably read book three – sometimes it’s nice to read a book that’s just enjoyable and doesn’t ask you to think too much.

The Nevernight Chronicle:

1. Nevernight
2. Godsgrave
3. Darkdawn

Review: Monstress Volumes 4-6

It’s hard to write a full review of the Monstress books, because at this point they’re all chunks of the middle of a story and not discreet stories in and of themselves. It’s difficult to have unique things to say about multiple chunks of the middle of the same story. So for Volumes 4-6, I decided to do one review for all three volumes – that way I won’t be publishing three reviews that say almost the same thing.

Spoiler Warning: This review may contain mild spoilers of Monstress Volumes 1-3, but will not contain spoilers of Volumes 4-6.

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Title: Monstress Volume 4: The Chosen

Series: Monstress #4 (Issues 19-24)

Author: Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist)

Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of children, gore (extreme), torture, torture of children, death of parents, body horror (extreme), child abuse, refugees, injuries (graphic)

Back Cover:

Maika and Corvin make their way through a warped and lethal land in search of Kippa, who is faced with her own terrible monsters. But when Maika comes face-to-face with a stranger from her deep past, startling truths are uncovered, and at the center of it all lurks a dangerous conspiracy that threatens the Known World. Maika is finally close to getting all the answers she ever wanted, but at what price? With war on the horizon —a war no one wants to stop — whose side will Maika choose?

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Title: Monstress Volume 5: Warchild

Series: Monstress #5 (Issues 25-30)

Author: Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist)

Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of children, gore (extreme), torture, torture of children, death of parents, body horror (extreme), child abuse, war, injuries (graphic), sexual content/nudity

Back Cover:

The long-dreaded war between the Federation and Arcanics is about to explode. Maika must choose her next steps: will she help her friends, or strike out on her own?

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Title: Monstress Volume 6: The Vow

Series: Monstress #6 (Issues 31-35)

Author: Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist)

Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of children, gore (extreme), torture, torture of children, death of parents, body horror (extreme), child abuse, war, injuries (graphic), sexual content/nudity, fire injuries, cannibalism

Back Cover:

War has engulfed the Known World, and Maika Halfwolf is at its epicenter. As she and her friends grapple with the consequences of their actions, long-buried secrets and long-awaited reunions threaten to change everything.

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Review:

I’ve said before that I don’t usually like reading comic books because I have a hard time balancing my attention between the words and the pictures. But this series is absolutely worth an exception. The Monstress books are just so good. Dark, bloody, gritty, and violent, but also complex, wise, and beautiful.

If you have not opened one of these books before, go do so immediately. The artwork is absolutely gorgeous.

As the story goes on, new threads appear and the tapestry they are weaving get more complex. Past and present collide – or perhaps it’s more accurate to say the only way to unravel the present is to delve into what happened in the past. New players arrive on the field, throwing new wrenches into the complexity that Maika usually just deals with through violence, but she’s so powerful that often violence works anyway. There are hints, though, that violence won’t take her much further.

I am adoring Maika’s character growth. She started off the series as a very compelling character, but she’s starting to grow into a character who is both compelling and likeable. (Kippa, of course, is and has always been likeable, and I adore how her sweetness and trust contrasts with Maika’s rage and violence.) The thing that lives inside Maika is starting to become a character in its own right instead of simply a force for violence. And even the minor characters are fantastic. Everybody has to make tough choices. Everybody is morally gray. Some of the antagonists are the kind you love to hate but every single face that appears in these pages is compelling.

I really, really wish I could have every single volume of this series in one big book so I can devour it all at once. It would have to be massive but it would absolutely be worth it. One of the main reasons I don’t get much into serialized works is because if I find one that’s really good, I want to read the whole story at once and not wait for future installments.

That’s what I’m going to end up doing here, though. Volume 6 was just released this year, and this story is nowhere near finished. I’m going to be mad about it, but I’m going to wait, and whenever Volume 7 happens I’m going to jump on it immediately. And if it takes a while and I have to read the first six volumes again to get myself back up to speed … well, there’s no reason to complain about that.

The Monstress series:

1. Monstress Volume 1: Awakening
2. Monstress Volume 2: The Blood
3. Monstress Volume 3: Haven
4. Monstress Volume 4: The Chosen
5. Monstress Volume 5: Warchild
6. Monstress Volume 6: The Vow

Review: Monstress Volume 3

Title: Monstress Volume 3: Haven

Series: Monstress #3 (Issues 13-18)

Author: Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist)

Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of children, gore (extreme), torture, torture of children, death of parents, body horror (extreme), child abuse, refugee camps

Spoiler Warning: This book is third in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of Volume 1 and Volume 2.

Back Cover:

Maika Halfwolf has begun to unlock the mysteries of her past – but the challenges are only going. In this third volume of MONSTRESS, collecting issues 13-18, Maika’s journey takes her to the neutral city of Pontus, where she hopes to find temporary refuge from her pursuers. Unfortunately, Pontus may not be as safe as Maika and her allies had hoped.

As the impending war between humans and Arcanics creeps ever closer, and powerful players fight for the chance to control her future, Maika finds she must work with Zinn, the Monstrum that lives inside her, in order to ensure their mutual survival. But even that alliance might not be enough to prepare Maika for the horrors to come.

Review:

Like Volume 2, this entry in the series is more like a chunk of the middle of a story than a complete story, but the story is finally starting to get into the meat and action. Maika is still hunting for answers, but she keeps finding more questions (or at least I do, since I as the reader get to see conversations and events that Maika doesn’t) and in this volume her enemies have started finding her.

I am loving the dynamic developing between Maika and the progressively-more-talkative demon creature inside her, who now has a name and some of a backstory. Zinn, the demon, is expected to be a bad guy (by the tropes and by most of the characters in the story), but compared to violent and recklessly self-endangering Maika, it almost seems like the voice of reason. Maika is now up against enemies who are proving she is actually not basically unkillable, but that doesn’t stop her from knowing she can take whatever pain they throw at her and continuing to fight.

And the more this series goes on, the more I love Kippa. The little fox is so young but insists on seeing and believing the best of Maika and it’s just so darn sweet. No matter how much Maika tries to push Kippa away, Kippa still cares for her – and this entry in the series shows that Maika may actually care for Kippa a little, too.

As always, the art is stunning and the plot is fantastic. I struggle to keep track of all the warring factions in this world, but I’m not sure if that’s a problem with the storytelling or my difficulty in reading graphic novels. I am grabbing Volume 4 immediately.

The Monstress series:

1. Monstress Volume 1: Awakening
2. Monstress Volume 2: The Blood
3. Monstress Volume 3: Haven
4. Monstress Volume 4: The Chosen
5. Monstress Volume 5: Warchild
6. Monstress Volume 6: The Vow

Review: Monstress Volume 2: The Blood

Title: Monstress Volume 2: The Blood

Series: Monstress #2

Author: Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist)

Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of children, gore (extreme), torture, torture of children, death of parents, body horror (extreme), nudity (mild), child abuse

Spoiler Warning: This book is second in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of Volume 1.

Back Cover:

Maika Halfwolf is on the run from a coalition of forces determined to control or destroy the powerful Monstrum that lives beneath her skin. But Maika still has a mission of her own: to discover the secrets of her late mother, Moriko.

In this second volume of Monstress, collecting issues 7-12, Maika’s quest takes her to the pirate-controlled city of Thyria and across the sea to the mysterious Isle of Bones. It is a journey that will force Maika to reevaluate her past, present, and future, and contemplate whether there’s anyone, or anything, she can truly trust – including her own body.

Review:

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not very much into graphic novels because I have a hard time paying attention to both the images and the words. But the Monstress series is worth it because it’s dark and beautiful and stunning.

I really should have read this shortly after reading Volume 1, because it took me a little bit to catch back up on the plot and what exactly Maika is up to at the moment. But after I got back into the swing of the story, it was absorbing. The plot is strong and the story is interesting, and the artwork is absolutely stunning. Maika is so full of rage and anger, which is interesting in itself because it’s something you don’t often get in female characters, and she’s the kind of fearless and take-no-shit that I love because she knows the monster inside her won’t let her be killed and any suffering before that point she knows she can handle.

This book (volume? Collection of comic books?) is difficult to review because it’s not a complete story in and of itself like an entry in a traditional novel series would be. Putting it in terms of what I’m used to, it feels like a chunk of the middle of a novel. And that’s because in a way it is – it’s chapters 7-12 of a single 35-chapter-and-still-ongoing story. This is not at all how I’m used to experiencing stories, but I love these ideas, these characters, and this artwork – and besides, I’m always trying to read new things anyway. I am definitely not going to wait too long before getting Volume 3.

The Monstress series:

1. Monstress Volume 1: Awakening
2. Monstress Volume 2: The Blood
3. Monstress Volume 3: Haven
4. Monstress Volume 4: The Chosen
5. Monstress Volume 5: Warchild
6. Monstress Volume 6: The Vow

Review: Monstress Volume 1: Awakening

Title: Monstress Volume 1: Awakening

Series: Monstress #1

Author: Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist)

Genre: Dark Fantasy/Horror

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of children, gore (extreme), torture, torture of children, death of parents, war, body horror (extreme), nudity

Back Cover:

Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900’s Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers.

Review:

I normally don’t read graphic novels because I end up focusing on either the words or the pictures and struggle to put them together into one story. But I made an exception for Monstress because it is just so beautiful.

I actually own this book, and I bought it mostly because of the art. It is incredibly intricate and full of detail, and if you end up focusing on just the pictures for a page or two that’s just fine because there’s so many things to look at. And it’s gorgeous. Steampunk meets art deco with a tinge of manga (several of the character designs remineded me of 90s Shonen anime) and I know I’ve spent like two paragraphs now harping on this point but I cannot get over how much Monstress is just a treat for your eyes.

It’s also very, very dark. There is a ton of gore, death, and blood, torture, and quite a bit of body horror, and all of it vividly depicted in the beautiful artwork. It’s not unnecessary, though. This story is about the horrors of war, racial hatred, and how to continue when there is monstrousness inside you.

In an author’s note at the end, Marjorie Liu talks about her grandparents’ experiences with war in their home country of China and how “in their stories surviving was more horrifying than dying.” This story is about how after your survive the horror, you have to pick up the pieces and somehow find a way to live with the trauma. We get to see the trauma of Maika, the protagonist, the most deeply, but nearly everyone in the story is traumatized in some way.

But if you don’t feel like relating to the big themes on trauma and monstrousness, there’s also magic, talking cats, eldrich horrors, winged people, and a really good story, so you could also just enjoy it as a well-told dark fantasy story. (I think that would be missing the point, but you could.)

The only real criticism I have is that I had a hard time figuring out the world at the beginning. Normally that’s not a problem and I pick up on things as I read, but there were so many terms thrown around at the beginning that for a little bit I wasn’t sure what was going on. I got the hang of most of it about halfway through, but I’m still not really sure what a Cumaea is. Overall, though, that is a really minor criticism.

Monstress is actually an ongoing comic series, and the “volumes” collect the comic issues into paperback books. There’s five out currently and I have no idea how many are planned, but I hope to read every single one of them.

The Monstress series:

1. Monstress Volume 1: Awakening
2. Monstress Volume 2: The Blood
3. Monstress Volume 3: Haven
4. Monstress Volume 4: The Chosen
5. Monstress Volume 5: Warchild
6. Monstress Volume 6: The Vow

Review: Nevernight

Title: Nevernight

Series: The Nevernight Chronicle #1

Author: Jay Kristoff

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, death of animals, blood (from wounds and also characters going into pools of it), gore, dismemberment, torture, poison, explicit sex (male/female), body horror, excrement

Back Cover:

In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?

Review:

Cover? Very pretty. Idea? I’m always down for assassin schools. Author? I’d read one of his books before and remember it being fairly good. And then I almost gave up on it in the middle of the first chapter.

So let’s start with the bad: This book is horribly, horribly overwritten. The idea is that our main character became a legend somewhere and this book is a story told by some sort of bard or storyteller explaining how she got to be a legend. Jay is trying for “lyrical old-fashioned bard” style and ended up with “most pretentious writer to ever pretentious.” It’s quite off-putting.

So is the fact that the story’s told out of order in the beginning, jumping back and forth between backstory and present without being clear which is when, and it’s incredibly confusing. (The unexpected sex scene in chapter one, before we’ve learned Mia’s name or anything else about her, was off-putting, too.) But for some reason I can’t really articulate, I pushed through it, and it actually ended up being good. The writing style didn’t get better, but the flashbacks mostly stopped happening after page 100 and there were only two more sex scenes, both of which had a little bit of build-up so I knew where to skim. (I don’t like sex scenes in books, but that’s just my preference.) It turned out to be a pretty enjoyable story.

This book is incredibly, almost gratuitously gory and violent. You say, “It’s a book about assassin school, I’m not surprised.” To which I say, “No, I think you’re underestimating just how gory and violent this book is.” Many people die painfully. Mia gets tortured a couple times. Mia both inflicts and receives a ridiculous amount of pain. Characters get literally submerged in blood. And every bit of it gets described in excruciating detail. I like assassin books as much as the next person and even I thought the violence was a little much.

There’s a lot of really interesting worldbuilding in this book (although most of it was done through footnotes and I haven’t decided if that’s unique and cool or a cop-out). Mia was also a pretty solid character – dedicated to revenge, stubborn, possessing a few abilities beyond normal that make her more of a competitor than she would seem, and pretty much a classic assassin school protagonist. The plot was pretty good, and I didn’t predict the twist at the end. Excepting the writing style, it’s a solid story.

Nevernight is first in a series, but I’m not really sure I want to continue it. This book was good, don’t get me wrong, but the threads left hanging at the end of this one weren’t super compelling. Despite Mia having more revenging to do and the surprise bad guy of this book getting away, I feel like it wrapped up pretty well. I’m satisfied. And I’m also not sure I want to go reading about this level of gratuitous violence again anytime soon.

The Nevernight Chronicle:

1. Nevernight
2. Godsgrave
3. Darkdawn