Reviews with content warning for Blood - A Day of Fallen Night

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

46 reviews

kristinrdub's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful slow-paced

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

A masterpiece of fantasy. Truly feels as if I’ve uncovered a tomb with the history of a long-forgotten world. Slow to start but once you have a grasp of the many characters the story unfolds quickly and marvelously.

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bookswithbethx's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced

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

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queerreaderchaos's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

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annamorgan27's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

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katzekaiserin's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

This book is, despite being a similar length and structure as the current ther only installent in its series, and having similar amounts of queer representation, very different. For one thing, the story isn't about heroism as much as it is about survival and politics, which kind of breaks the mold for this type of epic fantasy: the aim of the book is merely to endure, which is the best way to write a prequel surrounding events already heavily mythologized in the following book.

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.

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Glorian Shieldheart what a fucking badass. I got literal chills during some of her scenes. I also appreciated that this book was even more gay than Priory. Truly iconic. The way that Shannon integrates a whole cast of different identities into these books is honestly inspiring. Because of the length of the book, some of the slow reveals really kept me invested. All in all, I’d love to keep reading from this world!

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