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A review by candidceillie
A Myth to the Night: Parts I-V by Cora Choi
2.0
Once home to the illustrious Order of the Crane -- guardians of the world's myths and legends -- Stauros Island, now in the hands of the Order of the Shrike, is an elite university whose students are guaranteed positions of power upon graduating.
However, a dark curse hangs over the island: students are disappearing. The school officials declare it the work of a demon, and blame Hugh Fogg -- a young monk of the Order of the Crane who died 400 years earlier.
Could the spirit of a young man who died in 1615 come back to haunt an island and terrorize its students? If so, for what purpose? A Myth to the Night is Hugh's story and his struggle to see his mission complete.
I read the entire set through an ARC from Netgalley, so read the rest at your own risk.
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually liked it. The cover is absolutely lovely, and the premise is pretty interesting. The writing was good, but not great. There were a lot of opportunities for some really amazing things throughout the books, but I found that Choi preferred to have the characters tell us what was going on, instead of showing us.
For as long as the book was, I really wanted it to have more development of both the characters and the world. The world had bits and pieces that were developed, but we didn’t get to actually see any of the evil that the Order of the Shrike caused with their leadership. We never get anything past what Drev told us originally. I felt like I was being told to believe something when I’d been given no reason to believe. I didn’t care about any of the characters because I was never given any reason to. I also totally called both of Drev’s big plot twists, which was really disappointing because they were the main ones in the novel.
I love the idea of the phantoms living on the island and being visible and audible at night. It’s spooky and super nifty. The idea of the storybook characters coming to life because their books had been burned is amazing. The phantom monk being the main character was awesome – except that he was a very blah person who made no progress throughout the novel.
Basically, I was really disappointed because this book could have been much better than it was, with just some simple changes. I wanted to know what actually happened on the island in the end. I think it would have made more sense to have Hugh stick around to help teach about the Order of the Crane, since the entire order had been killed off 400 years previously.
However, a dark curse hangs over the island: students are disappearing. The school officials declare it the work of a demon, and blame Hugh Fogg -- a young monk of the Order of the Crane who died 400 years earlier.
Could the spirit of a young man who died in 1615 come back to haunt an island and terrorize its students? If so, for what purpose? A Myth to the Night is Hugh's story and his struggle to see his mission complete.
I read the entire set through an ARC from Netgalley, so read the rest at your own risk.
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually liked it. The cover is absolutely lovely, and the premise is pretty interesting. The writing was good, but not great. There were a lot of opportunities for some really amazing things throughout the books, but I found that Choi preferred to have the characters tell us what was going on, instead of showing us.
For as long as the book was, I really wanted it to have more development of both the characters and the world. The world had bits and pieces that were developed, but we didn’t get to actually see any of the evil that the Order of the Shrike caused with their leadership. We never get anything past what Drev told us originally. I felt like I was being told to believe something when I’d been given no reason to believe. I didn’t care about any of the characters because I was never given any reason to. I also totally called both of Drev’s big plot twists, which was really disappointing because they were the main ones in the novel.
I love the idea of the phantoms living on the island and being visible and audible at night. It’s spooky and super nifty. The idea of the storybook characters coming to life because their books had been burned is amazing. The phantom monk being the main character was awesome – except that he was a very blah person who made no progress throughout the novel.
Basically, I was really disappointed because this book could have been much better than it was, with just some simple changes. I wanted to know what actually happened on the island in the end. I think it would have made more sense to have Hugh stick around to help teach about the Order of the Crane, since the entire order had been killed off 400 years previously.