A review by fictionalcass
Dark Age by Pierce Brown

dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Obviously this has spoilers for the previous books. Hard to write a review for book five that wouldn’t have spoilers. 

This book was an absolute rollercoaster, but one that exclusively went up and down in bad feelings. The title being Dark Age is really on brand for this one, and this is the first book in the series that feels definitively like a war book, despite war being a heavy theme throughout the whole series. This was also the first book in the series that felt difficult to follow. Not in sense of plot, but in the timeline. The way the different points of view were interspersed felt a lot less smooth in this book overall, and it did feel a bit disjointed at some points. 

That being said, some of the team ups we got in this book were absolutely stellar. It was interesting to finally get a Virginia point of view, and I loved her relationship with Holiday and the way that they worked together. My absolute favorite sections were the Lyria POVs, especially when she linked up with Victra and Volga. Truly an iconic trio, and the sections of them were definitely the highlight for me, despite having some of the toughest parts to read. The Darrow and Lysander parts were not bad, and they certainly had me stressed. The plot certainly took some interesting turns with these two. 

Along with the ladies, I can’t leave out my main man Ephraim. Mans has been through it and honestly he’s made it into my top five favorite characters in the series thus far. 

This book was hard to get through, and it was absolutely brutal. It definitely has a lot less of the fun that can be found in the earlier books, and the plot was quite frankly bananas. The amount of times I actually yelled as a result of this book was incredibly high, and despite some of the issues with the actual cohesiveness of this installment, I think it might be my favorite so far???? Maybe because of the constant state of anxiety it forced me to be in? I did feel so many feelings for truly every character, which is impressive in Pierce’s because these characters are all over the board in morality. All of the POV characters (and all the side ones, especially Victra and Sevro) had me uniquely invested in their journeys and Pierce wrote them in a way that I did become attached to them all. 

Trying to write a cohesive review for this one also feels like a challenge. There were so many moving parts in this book and it was honestly a bit of an overload but at some points felt like nothing was advancing. Like I said, I did legitimately love it, but it felt a lot messier in comparison when lined up with the rest of the series. 4⭐️ for this one, but again…it might be my favorite???? Ask me in two weeks and maybe I’ll know for sure. 
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