Book Review: Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1)

Release Date: August 9, 2016
Author: Jay Kristoff
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Length: 429 pages
Source: Purchased Book

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:

Protagonist: Mia Corvere lost her family in one night due to her father's failed rebellion, now she needs to get revenge on those that killed her father, but she cannot take on this task without training first. Mia seeks out the Red Church, a school for assassins where she needs to be honed to a razor's edge. I love Mia and all the shades and shadows that make her a great morally gray character. Mia's not a good person, sure she has a bit of a heart, but she won't let anything stop her from getting the revenge she feels she rightly deserves. Mia's a complex character that I just love to read from, she's a bit unpredictable, which always makes for a good time, and she has a lot of something I feel more and more protagonists are lacking and that's common sense. Mia's smart and practically already an assassin when this story begins, yet I never felt like her character development was held back because of that, this is more about honing Mia's skill and her journey to avenge her familia and discover the secrets of what she is.

Romance: One of the things I loved about the romance in this story is that it doesn't infringe on the rest of the story, sure it matters, it has its place in the story, and it's not shoved toward the back or the front, it's just there and how it plays into the rest of the story I felt was brilliantly handled. Mia's not exactly a warm character so it was really interesting to see how she approached the romance she has in this story. There is a bond between the couple and I really enjoyed seeing that explored. Everything felt so natural, I mean, it was almost unreal how natural the two characters feel together and how natural their romance and relationship progresses in the story.

World Building: The world building in this tale is incredible. All over this story are footnotes that give additional information on the world and the mythos of this dark fantasy world. Well, I say dark but really this world hardly sees a truedark, most of the time it's day, and that's only the base surface of this world. I'm a huge sucker for a school or test setting where a group of characters is brought together and only a few will succeed in the task set before them, and this is probably the best version I've ever seen of that trope. Plus there's a murder mystery aspect to the story that blew me away, what else did you expect to happen at a school for assassins? This story is a bit dense towards the beginning, it took me a while to really find my groove with the story but once I got the hang of things, everything went a lot smoother. I will also say that I listened to all of this story as an Audible audiobook and I'd warn if you're thinking about listening to this story as an audiobook, I'd follow along for the first couple of chapters because it goes back and forth in time quite a bit and it's harder to follow on the audiobook at first.

Predictability: I don't think I predicted a single thing in this story, not even joking, there was this one moment where I thought the story was going in one direction, I thought that something pretty tropey was happening, and in the space of a couple seconds everything changed and the story barreled on in a different direction and it was glorious. With some of the twists I'd play around with the truth, but things never truly made sense until minutes before the reveal, if not seconds. Also, I listened to this story in six chapters at a time, so I don't know if it's that or how the story is told but it's so complex that I'll forget about plot points at certain times so I never really had a lot of time to truly consider what would happen when certain things were revealed.

Ending: The end of this tale is glorious. I mean, action scene after action scene, amazing twists, possible foreshadowing to bigger things and a LOT of death, what more could you ask for? I can't even really just talk about the final climax because there were a few different climactic moments toward the end and all of them need to be praised because that is some of, if not the best, action scene writing I've ever read. I was completely sucked into the story, into the carnage and death all around, soaking it in. Then, when the dust settled and losses counted, there was one of my favorite things to see in books, an epilogue, and this epilogue was truly something. It gives a lot of closure on the events of this story and teases what's to come for the next book, or at least I hope it does, and while this story doesn't leave off on a cliffhanger, I'm desperate to know what happens next.

Rating:

This is by far one of my favorite books of all time, I loved the complex characters, the intricate and detailed world building, a romance that felt just right, and a mystery and path of revenge I cannot wait to continue following!

Blog Tour Book Review: LIFEL1K3 (Lifelike #1) + GIVEAWAY!

Release Date: May 29, 2018
Author: Jay Kristoff
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Length: 416 pages
Source: Review ARC from Publisher

On a floating junkyard beneath a radiation sky, a deadly secret lies buried in the scrap.

Eve isn’t looking for secrets—she’s too busy looking over her shoulder. The robot gladiator she’s just spent six months building has been reduced to a smoking wreck, and the only thing keeping her Grandpa from the grave was the fistful of credits she just lost to the bookies. To top it off, she’s discovered she can destroy electronics with the power of her mind, and the puritanical Brotherhood are building a coffin her size. If she’s ever had a worse day, Eve can’t remember it.

But when Eve discovers the ruins of an android boy named Ezekiel in the scrap pile she calls home, her entire world comes crashing down. With her best friend Lemon Fresh and her robotic conscience, Cricket, in tow, she and Ezekiel will trek across deserts of irradiated glass, infiltrate towering megacities and scour the graveyard of humanity’s greatest folly to save the ones Eve loves, and learn the dark secrets of her past.

Even if those secrets were better off staying buried.

    

Review:

Protagonist: Eve has spent the days since her family's death doing everything she can to keep her grandfather from succumbing to cancer that is slowly killing him. She does this by fighting in the ring of the WarDome, using her machina to take down other robots and earn money for her grandfather's medicine, but when she loses, in turn discovering a power within her, a power people will kill her over, she didn't think she could have a worse day, but coming across a lifelike in the barren wasteland of the Scrap, and coming home to many forces willing to kill her, her friends Lemon and Cricket, and her grandfather, she's set off on a journey of self-discovery, to find out who she truly is. Eve is such a complex character, who goes through a whole gambit of emotions in just this one book. As she voyages on, with Lemon, Cricket, and Ezekiel in tow, she has to face so much more than who she is. This journey forges her into someone, something stronger, and I was completely blown away by how she doesn't so much change, as she finds out who she is, in more than one sense.

Romance: So, fairly early on there were a few red flags when it came to the romance in this book, things that, if another author had written this, I might have had cause to be worried about as some of the tropes in this romance felt almost like narrative shortcuts, something to fast-track the romance, luckily that wasn't the case at all. The romance between Eve and Zeke is fairly layered and very compelling. I will say now though, that there isn't really a focus put on the romance too much, which makes sense with everything else that's going on in this book, but that doesn't mean that the romance wasn't extremely compelling, and it does impact the story in some major ways. It was interesting to see how the author transformed a couple rather tired romance tropes, things that, as I said before, felt like shortcuts and made them very poignant elements to the romance, and in some ways hindered the romance more than helped it.

World Building: If I had one bad thing to say about this book it's that the beginning is a bit hard to get into. This is one of those books that likes to throw you right into the story, into an almost completely new world, built on the near destruction of our own, filled with its own (luckily creative) slang and a history that the reader isn't privy to from the start. It took me a little while to get used to and to fully understand what's going on, but once I did I practically sunk into this world. There are a lot of post-apocalyptic elements to this world, in addition to the more sci-fi elements, and even when the author is describing a barren wasteland, everything still feels so real and so alive, because the author's words truly bring this world to life. Then there's how robots fit in this world, the three cardinal Laws of robots, and how there are some robots that don't follow those rules added so much depth to the story and a great philosophical angle overall. I loved learning about the different types of machines in this world, how some are mindless, only doing what they're programmed to do and nothing else, some are manually controlled by a human, and some have a mind of their own, minds that can be used to help or harm. Finally, there are a few retelling elements sprinkled into this story, one that may be very obvious is Pinocchio, as Cricket is described as Eve's conscience, but there's another one, a bigger one, and one that completely caught me by surprise.

Predictability: While there are one or two twists in this book that felt like they got a bit too obvious before they're suddenly revealed, most of the twists in this book caught me completely off guard. Obviously this is the trickiest section to write as it's the closest to spoilers and there isn't a whole lot I can say other than whether the twists in this book hit home, but the final twist, the biggest twist, well I'll just say that while I had a few inklings before the final revelation, they didn't come too early in the book, and the twist still laid me out flat.

Ending: Holy crap, the ending of this book is so freaking intense. I mean, the final climax alone knocked my socks off, but there was still a great deal after that. The final climax is full of tension as our heroes make their stand, there's a great deal of action and emotion all packed into a couple chapters, if that much, then we have a twist, that as I said before completely laid me out flat and that I'm still reeling from, all leading to a game-changing cliffhanger that left me wildly speculating about where the next book will even lead, though I do have a few ideas.

Rating:

Gah! I wanted to give this book 5 stars so bad, but the thing is, as much as this book completely blew me away and will undoubtedly leave me with a major book hangover, the beginning of this story is a bit tricky to get immersed into, but when you do, you're in for one hell of a ride!

About the Author:

Jay Kristoff is a #1 international, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy. He grew up in the second most isolated capital city on earth and fled at his earliest convenience, although he’s been known to trek back for weddings of the particularly nice and funerals of the particularly wealthy. Being the holder of an Arts degree, he has no education to speak of.

His LOTUS WAR trilogy was critically acclaimed in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, nominated for the David Gemmell Morningstar and Legend awards and won the 2014 Aurealis Award. Jay’s new series, the SciFi thriller THE ILLUMINAE FILES, was co-authored with Amie Kaufman. Book 1, ILLUMINAE, became a New York Times and international bestseller, was named among the Kirkus, Amazon and YALSA Best Books of 2015, became a finalist for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award and won the 2016 Aurealis Award and an ABIA Book of the Year award. ILLUMINAE is currently slated to be published in thirty five countries, and film rights have been acquired by Brad Pitt and Plan B Entertainment.

Jay’s new fantasy series, THE NEVERNIGHT CHRONICLE, commenced in 2016. The novel was an international bestseller, won the Aurealis award and earned Kristoff his second Gemmell nomination. Part 2, GODSGRAVE, was published in 2017, and won the series its second Aurealis award. A new YA series, LIFEL1K3 has also been acquired by Knopf/Random House Kids, and commences publication in early 2018. A new series with Amie Kaufman, THE ANDROMEDA CYCLE, begins in 2019 with Knopf/Random House Kids. Jay is as surprised about all this as you are. He is represented by Josh Adams at Adams Literary.

Jay is 6’7 and has approximately 12,000 days to live. He abides in Melbourne with his secret agent kung-fu assassin wife, and the world’s laziest Jack Russell.

He does not believe in happy endings.

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Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) by Jay Kristoff (WOW #18)

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that everyone’s excited about!

The first in a new fantasy series from the New York Times bestselling author.

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?

Nevernight releases on August 9, 2016 from Thomas Dunne Books

What's not to love about a school of assassins, a girl set on revenge, and a killer in the house? I've read books by Jay Kristoff before and if this is anything like his other works I have to say it will be fantastic!

So, what are you waiting for this Wednesday?

Gemina (The Illuminae Files #2) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (WOW #10)

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that everyone’s excited about!

Moving to a space station at the edge of the galaxy was always going to be the death of Hanna’s social life. Nobody said it might actually get her killed.

Hanna Donnelly is the station captain’s pampered daughter; Nik Malikov the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. But while the pair are struggling with the realities of life aboard the galaxy's most boring space station, little do they know that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall, carrying news of the Kerenza invasion. 

When an elite BeiTech strike team invades the station, Hanna and Nik are thrown together to defend their home. But alien predators are picking off the station residents one by one, and a malfunction in the station's wormhole means the space-time continuum might be ripped in two before dinner. Soon Hanna and Nik aren’t just fighting for their own surivival; the fate of everyone on the Hypatia—and possibly the known universe—is in their hands.

But relax. They've totally got this. They hope.

Gemina releases on October 18, 2016 from Knopf Books for Young Readers

YAAASSSS! I loved Illuminae so much and while I kind of expected book 2 to be a direct sequel, but I'm actually kind of more excited that it's a companion novel. The storytelling of this series is fantastic and if this installment is even half as good as the first I'm going to be sooooo happy, but hopefully it's better!

So, what are you waiting for this Wednesday?

Book Review: Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)

Release Date: October 20, 2015
Authors: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Length: 608 pages

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

    

Review:

Protagonists:So Ezra and Kady just broke up, and during a class that they share their planet is invaded. In the chaos they end up getting separated and wind up on two different evacuating ships. Because of how this book is told you never fully get a feel for the character development. It's not that they don't develop over time, they most definitely do it's just that it's really hard to pick up on. At first both character are very angry and hurt and they sort of lean on not only each other, but their newly appointed jobs as well to kind of figure out who they are and who they want to be.

Romance: I was utterly shocked at this romance. First off this is basically an established romance when the book begins. Sure they're broken up but honestly that doesn't last very long. Even though we don't really see these two come back together, or see that origin story that started off their romance, I found myself really rooting for the couple. This rarely happens when there's already an established romance, but I think how this book is written really lends itself well to this type of romance. It was fun and there was a definite chemistry between the two characters even though they really only talk over instant messaging.

World-Building: This book you guys, this book. It's essentially a fictitious compilation of files  amassed in a dossier that tell this story. You have surveillance cam logs, IMs, schematics, military files, e-mails, journal entries, etc. that all work together to form such an amazing story. It's unlike anything I've ever read before. While I'm not a huge sci-fi fanatic and the techno mumbo-jumbo can be a bit confusing, I always felt that it was meant to be that way and that there wasn't anything I was missing out on. I have to say, I know there's an audio book version, but I implore you that if you are going to read this book, READ it, I'm sure the audio book is a totally different experience and you'll get all the information you'll need for the story to make sense, but this book is something else entirely and I can't stress how much you need to read it.

Predictability: So confession time, I actually spoiled myself on something substantial at the end, it's not something too huge, and to be honest I probably would have figured it out anyway, but it definitely affected how the twists toward the end of the book affected me. That being said though, there were so many twists in this book and I loved each and every one of them. Because this book is essentially the meat of the story without a lot of extra exposition, it was kept very high-octane and there was never a lull in the story. While I could guess a few things due to context clues and foreshadowing, for the most part I was caught off guard many times while reading this book.

Ending: You never really find out quite why this book is entitled Illuminae until the very end of this book, and while I'm still not sure why that name was chosen in the book, the title makes sense once you read it. Honestly I can't quite pinpoint a final climax because as I said before this whole book was extremely climactic, Everything toward the end of the book was absolutely epic, and with ho this book is written it's not jsut something you read it's something you feel. As the book winds down there's a certain document/Instant Message log that takes this book to a whole new level, and leaves the book with this epic seismic cliffhanger that left me in NEED of the next book.

Rating:

For how this book is written alone it should get five stars, it takes some real talent to pull something like that off so effectively, but then you have the story which is so beyond phenomenal. In all honesty I think that this may very well be my favorite book of the year so far! I literally cannot wait until the next one!