yikeslou's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Pregnancy, Blood, Animal death, Child death, and Death of parent
itsbexx's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, War, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence
zoiejanelle's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
A Day Of Fallen Night built upon the lush and brilliant world of Priory and expanded upon the mythos and magic i fell in love with in Priory. the story was much faster in this book, with multiple viscerally real and flawed storytellers that made me fall in love time and time again. the plot was so deep, so intricately woven, and there was not a single point (past page 100) where i felt comfortable putting the book down for too long.
although the audience somewhat knew the story that the book would tell, the devil is truly in the details. the characters and their arcs truly made this book worth reading and enriched the lore of the world tenfold. getting to know the players in the folklore intimately was just magical… i will never read Priory the same way.
also… the romance in this book was NEXT LEVEL. i did not think Samantha Shannon could top Ead and Sabran, but i was very, very wrong. the two main romances in this story were sapphic, which i loved, and all mentioned partnerships were extremely three-dimensional and believable. i won’t put spoilers here, but the enemies to lovers was SERVING in this book and i wept MULTIPLE TIMES over one particular couple. and over other things as well.
this book simultaneously re-opened and healed some aching wounds inside me—wounds surrounding womanhood, motherhood, family, religion, love, duty, and identity. i was a complete sniveling mess for the last ~150 pages of the book, but i wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Samantha Shannon has done it again. A Day Of Fallen Night is truly a masterpiece.
Graphic: Misogyny, Grief, Body horror, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, Violence, Death of parent, Sexual content, War, Infidelity, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Body horror, Alcohol, Xenophobia, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, and Child death
Minor: Infertility, Adult/minor relationship, and Abortion
bergha1998's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Multi-POV, LGBTQIA+, Romance Subplots, 1 🔥
“I bid you mind my heart. I leave half of it in your keeping.”
“Your pain is not my pain, but I know its shape. I am sorry for it.“
“‘Because you would not believe until you saw.’ ‘Is that so terrible?’”
“He saw danger in difference… Some people need to call others evil, so they can seem pure and righteous in comparison, or to purge contempt they hold in secret for themselves.“
Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Grief, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, War, Death of parent, Infidelity, Torture, Violence, Animal death, and Blood
meganpbell's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Fire/Fire injury, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Suicide, Violence, Death, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Sexism, Terminal illness, Sexual content, Animal death, Child death, Murder, Religious bigotry, War, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Grief, Medical content, and Gore
georgialee01's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Graphic: Blood and Pregnancy
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Kidnapping, and Grief
Minor: Cannibalism and Suicide
bookswithbethx's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, War, Murder, Blood, Violence, Terminal illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Child death
Moderate: Abortion, Death of parent, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Adult/minor relationship
annamorgan27's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Blood, Animal death, War, Gore, Cursing, Grief, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual content
katzekaiserin's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I thought Day was by far more interesting than Priory, the book with which it is most naturally compared. While Priory plays with the themes on display, it doesn't have time to fully explore them the way Day can; Priory is, after all, more of a classic fantasy adventure, with too much going on to really even explore what is happening in its characters heads at all. This book, by contrast, is much more suited to the format, which is also it's greatest failing, as I will later explain.
Starting with the four characters, I think two are clearly the stand-outs. Glorian and Tunuva's stories are by far the most interesting and complex. They feel properly adult in a way Wulf and Dumai feel much more YA; I just feel that the YA-ish elements were not nearly as well-executed in a way that is impossible to explain without spoilers.
There are also three romance subplots in the book, all of them queer; again, I feel that the only one which was established before the book even starts is the best, possibly better than anything in Priory. I love queer romance as is no doubt obvious but in neither of the other ones I felt anything close to that level of chemistry (though admittedly the final chapter of the epilogue was perfect).
Contrasted with Priory, however, This book didn't have quite the same pull on my psyche as I was reading it, which is important to me. For reference, I finished the former in 9 days and the latter in 20, despite only a 30-page difference. I was just never excited to get back to it, even though I never felt bored during my sessions.
A final piece is a minor note on the worldbuilding: many have noted that Shannon's world is incredibly rich and believable while still being utterly fascinating; it is, in other words, precisely to my tastes. At the beginning of this book, I was delighted to see how different it was 500 years in the past, and being able to trace the lines in my imagination of what happened in the intervening five centuries (and, consequently, the previous five). However, while the Grief of Ages is certainly a very transformative event, I do feel that too many of the changes were fully explained by the end of the book. This lends the time between the installments a sense of stagnation, and I would have really preferred things stayed open to interpretation, particularly with regard to Seiiki.
I don't believe I can rate it any better or worse than Priory, as I think their respective deficits and triumphs roughly balance out. Ultimately, I think they're both pretty great.
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Violence and Blood
lizziaha's review against another edition
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pregnancy, Violence, and War
Moderate: Grief, Medical content, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Animal cruelty, Gore, and Abandonment
Minor: Mental illness and Cannibalism