Reviews

Final Night by Kell Shaw

dizzy28's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

 FULL DISCLOSURE, I received this book as a giveaway price in Storygraph, many thanks to the organizer.

Summary w/out spoilers: Good prose, ok mystery, and interesting concepts for its world. Some bizarre choices kind of ruin a couple of things the book attempts, and side characters and the society of the setting feel flat and boring.

The good:

• I quite liked the prose, although I missed some chunkier descriptions specially of the characters, it is well written.
• An interesting concept for the setting (the author's webpage has a bit more information on the world)
• I liked the MC's flaws because they felt like things that a teenager would do and feel.
• The mystery was all-right, although the discovery and defeat of the culprit felt extremely rushed, perhaps making the book longer would have helped with pacing.

The bad:

• Side characters felt flat.
• The book doesn't introduce any notions of politics or society regarding different fantasy races, beyond 
  the Clearwaters disliking non-human races
  . Instead goes for a sort of real-life based 20th and 21st century society, which is a shame.
• The magic got confusing at times, what can and cannot be done by 
  patrons, shades, and revenants
  isn't very well defined.
• It's great to have a trans character in the book, however, when the protagonist remembers him in the past (before coming out), he is misgendered and dead-named, which is pretty atrotious for a book that obviously tries to be inclusive.
• The "singing competition" was incredibly cringey and out of place, and sort of ruined the villain for me. The whole song theme isn't my cup of tea either, but the singing competition was specially bad.
•  
  Nathel shooting himself
    is kind of nonsense and comes out of nowhere, 
  since he should have been under arrest considering he was aiding the Baron
  .

 

emmamc02's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

estim8tedpropht's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

2.75