Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - Book of Night

Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Book of Night by Holly Black

45 reviews

yilliun's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I didn’t know anything about this book going in and it surprised me. I think Black could have explained some of the world building a bit better since I found myself still confused even halfway through the book. That being said, I’m almost always a fan of a nonlinear plot and I think that added to the overall mysterious mood of the book.

The cliffhanger definitely had me wanting more and I’m very excited for the sequel.

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fionamatilda's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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beccamw11's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious

4.0

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wrensreadingroom's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

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bellebookcorner's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have quite a high expectation to this book because the author’s other series is one of my favorite and I’m curious to see this author’s first adult novel works. Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to my expectation.

I felt confused most of the times when I read this book, it’s hard to envision some of the things happening here. The slow pacing in the first half part of the book almost made me gave up continuing this book….

There’s a lot of characters to keep track of to and it’s kinda hard differentiating one to the other unless they have significant roles like the main characters and the villain.

As for the romance, it has the potential and I’m rooting for both main characters. I’m intrigued to find out what happens next. However, it’s a veryyyy slow burn romance so if you’re not a fan of those this book might not be for you.

I have to admit the magic system is actually interesting, with the shadow magic and the blight. I keep on reading because the second half part of the book gets slightly more interesting.

My favorite part is the last few chapters of the book where the secrets is out in the open and it actually surprise me in a good way.

Overall, this isn’t entirely a bad read but it’s not that great either.
The ending still makes me want to continue reading this series. I’d like to know what happens next so I’ll keep an eye out on the sequel later.

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sapphicbookdragon's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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rinku's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Book of Night is actually the first book by Black that I’ve read – besides reading the Spiderwick Chronicles as a child but I don’t remember anything about them. I wasn’t blown away by this novel, but it was a nice read, mainly because of the dark atmosphere and the interesting world.

In this book, we follow Charlie as she navigates a world in which shadows can be manipulated and are used for many shady things. Charlie soon finds herself in the centre of those because she goes on a mission to find a mysterious book. Her past helps her greatly with this task since she was once a thief and a criminal herself. The thief stuff and the few action scenes were honestly my favorite thing about this novel since they’re just so cool. Much of Charlie’s backstory is interesting as well, but it was a bit boring that much of it was told, just like the backstories of other characters. Furthermore, I always find a bit funny when YA authors write adult books because what makes books “adult” in their opinion is mentioning abuse, drugs, and sex often. This was here a bit over-the-top, and I’m sure there are other ways to make a book more adult. Some things were also quite predictable since the plot is a bit average, but I generally liked it.

I don’t know what I think about the ending though. What I did like about it was how

Spoiler

Charlie’s tricking Salt

but many other things about it were not so understandable. With all the plot twists and revelations, like

Spoiler

Vince being Remy’s shadow and not Remy or the hierophant being the murderer, apparently

, I was more irritated than shocked by them. Especially the second thing came a bit out of the blue for me. I also don’t like the last chapter and have the feeling it was only added to have the possibility for writing a second book.

Like I’ve mentioned at the beginning, the dark atmosphere created throughout the novel was so great. I imagined many scenes taking place in the dark or at least when it’s dusk/dawn, even when this wasn’t the case. The general world was interesting as well since I always love to read about urban fantasy novels where magic just exists, and we see how it’s dealt with in the modern world. Nevertheless, the world building was sometimes a bit irritating, and I struggled with imagining some things, like how a shadow is able to attack a person.

I don’t have strong opinions on the characters, I think they were all okay. Charlie seemed a bit try-hard edgy to me at the beginning but after the half, I started to warm up with her. I honestly found her past life and how she was back then more interesting, and I would love to read a whole book about it. Vince was a fascinating character from the beginning, but I didn’t care for Remy’s POV at all and don’t think that it was necessary. What I find a bit sad though is that mostly only men are part of the conspiracy and hence play a bigger role.

I’m not sure why we need a sequel to Book of Night since the story is nicely wrapped up at the end, even though it’s a bit open. Still, I wouldn’t mind reading more about Charlie since I started to like her quite a lot but I’m not the biggest fan of the situation she was put in at the end.

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