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A review by isabella_hightower
Defy the Night by Brigid Kemmerer
3.0
A really good book but filled with tropes, (A young impulsive girl falls in love with a rebel who’s secretly a dark prince and in one scene they joke that under her beautiful dress with a split down the side she may or may not have a hidden dagger) if that’s your thing, you’ll love this book.
Cons:
- The worldbuilding is a little sparse, the kingdom is plagued by “The Fever”TM and the only cure is a moonflower. Very surface level stuff.
- It’s very 2020 with all the tropes but again, some people like that.
- The mysterious plot is so painfully obvious,
- The characters are incredibly surface level like Tessa who is 100% the main character but also her entire personality is: kind, impulsive, headstrong, bad at lying. She is less of a character and more of a stand in for a reader who wants to do the right thing. I could not tell you a single thing that she likes not a favorite flower, a place to visit, or, a favorite color. I genuinely don’t know who this girl is beyond general compassion. Most characters are the same way, the villain, Allistair, is hateable, but he’s mostly hateable because he’s a one sided villain who doesn’t have much thought behind his actions.
Pros:
- The political intrigue is so interesting, the author provides a a problem that seems easy to solve at first, but as soon as you start thinking about it in a political sense all of a sudden, this becomes a web of allies and funding and free healthcare and infrastructure. Once it was explained, I genuinely had no idea how they would solve it.
- The book is ridiculously funny. Cory is extremely witty and has so many different, sarcastic remarks that left me laughing out loud in my bedroom.
- You really do want to root for the characters, past the hundred page mark I was all in, read the book in a day.
The author really cares about this story, it just comes off a little 2 dimensional at times. If you like the tropes you’ll love it and I enjoyed it myself.
Cons:
- The worldbuilding is a little sparse, the kingdom is plagued by “The Fever”TM and the only cure is a moonflower. Very surface level stuff.
- It’s very 2020 with all the tropes but again, some people like that.
- The mysterious plot is so painfully obvious,
- The characters are incredibly surface level like Tessa who is 100% the main character but also her entire personality is: kind, impulsive, headstrong, bad at lying. She is less of a character and more of a stand in for a reader who wants to do the right thing. I could not tell you a single thing that she likes not a favorite flower, a place to visit, or, a favorite color. I genuinely don’t know who this girl is beyond general compassion. Most characters are the same way, the villain, Allistair, is hateable, but he’s mostly hateable because he’s a one sided villain who doesn’t have much thought behind his actions.
Pros:
- The political intrigue is so interesting, the author provides a a problem that seems easy to solve at first, but as soon as you start thinking about it in a political sense all of a sudden, this becomes a web of allies and funding and free healthcare and infrastructure. Once it was explained, I genuinely had no idea how they would solve it.
- The book is ridiculously funny. Cory is extremely witty and has so many different, sarcastic remarks that left me laughing out loud in my bedroom.
- You really do want to root for the characters, past the hundred page mark I was all in, read the book in a day.
The author really cares about this story, it just comes off a little 2 dimensional at times. If you like the tropes you’ll love it and I enjoyed it myself.