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A review by _artemis
Dark Age by Pierce Brown
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
- 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? It's complicated
5.0
This was one of the most fucked up books I have ever read. Despite the ways in which this traumatized me, it was also somehow a work of art.
For ex... we need to look no further than the fucking prologue:
For ex... we need to look no further than the fucking prologue:
How many times have I been here? Sealed in a womb of metal, not for birth but to eat the living? The confines afflict me with dread. Dread not of what lies beyond—you can never prepare for that game—but that this will be my eternal tomb.
Cursed to live to kill. Is this who I will always be?
Is this the life I crave? To rise before the sun? To smile at the cock and fart jokes of killers as they grow younger and I grow older? To sleep under tanks, in the ruins of cities, amongst the corpses?
I no longer believe in the Vale. I am the walking dead.
Woe to those who cross my shadow.
I miss the promise of life. The smell of rain. The murmur of waves on a shore. The sound of a full house. It is a life I have rented, but never owned.
And with a start like that... I was deeply aware I would not emerge from this book the same as I entered it.
I don't know if I'll ever recover from the dog collar scene. I'm just gonna be real. Cannibals and dead babies were nightmare fuel too. There were parts where I asked myself, "how much longer can I be sustained without a morsel of hope?" and even if I had hope... who was even still alive for me to project it onto?
I love Pax with my whole heart.