Reviews

You can find this review of Nightfall on my blog, Heart's Content!

Warning: This review is going to be long. This book was gigantic and there are a lot of things I have to say. Also, I've tried to put down as many trigger warnings as I could note, but this is my first time writing one because the book does not have it so I may have missed out a few, so if you're trying out this series, please do also check out more experienced bloggers' opinions for their trigger warnings. They're probably better at pointing them out.

This book was ... well, it was the longest that I have ever waited for a book in my life. Five years. Five years. I think anybody who waited for Will's book was basically practicing everything from mindfulness to Zen-like patience because Will is the one character who left a mark on everyone from the very first book when he lit a gazebo and all of our curiosities up on fire at the same time.

This series is dark, difficult and it tests and pushes a lot of boundaries. It's like those shows on Netflix that you never think you'd ever watch, until you do and there's just something enthralling about them that manages to sort things out in your head and put some puzzles pieces together. It takes grey characters, holds them up to the world, sheds light on all their darkness but also their pain and their goodness. Everyone is the hero of their stories, but perhaps a villain in someone else's.

However, Will? He was probably the only one that remained a real heart-moving character for me throughout the series. His pain, fears and spiralling state has been ever present at the back of everyone's minds as they read the first three books and he was one of the characters that we remain in the dark about about everything. We see brightness and light dipped in sadness when he is around, but we know nothing else about him.

So, when the release date for Nightfall was announced, there was an uproar in all of our hearts and countdowns and theories and excitement and anticipation that spread through all of our conversations through the fifty odd days of wait.

Finally, when the book hit our hands, I spent the whole time with my eyes glued to my Kindle (thank you wireless delivery) and the first half of the book really really worked so beautifully for me.

Will is everything that I would expect of the description that the blurb gives us. The more we stay in his head in the present, the more I see his patient calculated steps towards his goals. He was stalking his future with precise moves, quiet secrets and unending perseverance and determination. Of course, my favourite part was the contrast between Will from the past and Will from the present. My favourite part of Pen's writing is when she works her magic on a character's personality. She can write a character in all their greyness and all their glory so well that it's wonderful to watch that unfold. Will was not what you'd expect from a Horseman, but it worked so beautifully and he was so heart-warming and throughout the book, I was alternatively proud and touched by William Aaron Paine Grayson III. The boy deserved it all.

Emmy...Now Emmy was the Damon of this book. She was the one who caused the pain, who was in pain and who was both hurting on the inside and lashing out on the outside. Her past was heartbreaking and her present painted the utter greyness of her character really well. We're completely in the dark about her and we don't find out until much later what happened.

However. However. Given how Nightfall is the last of the series and the fulcrum of literally everything that comes together, the plot of this book is the most heaviest part of it as the second half of the book starts up. When a plot is this prominent, there is no way that you can look away from the screen. Pen manages to collect all the threads from book one, two and three and weaves them beautifully into a beautiful braid that makes the book just blow you apart at certain points. I loved seeing the whole series coming together, Will coming into his own (gosh, the goosebumps) and the twists and turns.

...but. *lets out a breath* But, when a book that speaks about grey characters and has to redeem them and bring them together in a way that is very very convincing to the readers has such a heavy plot ... there are chances that the character/redemption arc falls out of focus in the face of the plot. To me, it felt as if because of how important it was to pull the story to a close, the characters got overlooked. There were also another well-loved character that required their own ending and this book was just pulled along too many directions for the actual characters of the story to have space for a natural growth into themselves and their relationship. Two pages did not change for me why the person who'd made a mistake was forgiven. I was not... convinced. And as much as it pains me to say this, this reduced the rating greatly for me. We are in it for the plot, definitely, but we're also into it for the characters. We here to see them as much as we're here for everything to come together. This was one of my biggest worries, that being the last of the series, the balance will slip to support the 'ending of a series' more than the story of the people in it.

My rating is 3.75. I wish with all my heart it was higher. The epilogue definitely raised it for me, but the imbalance won out because it left me feeling like a big part of the book was missing. I'm going to write the trigger warnings for this book, do expand to read or skip if you don't wish to know.

Spoiler

Trigger Warnings: physical and verbal abuse, gore, violence, graphic content, murder, strangulation, abuse of power, arson, mentions of molestation and rape, group intimacy, mentions of substance abuse, explicit content, explicit language.