I finally finished the first volume from the Nevernight trilogy! It’s been a while since my last ‘review’, so here we go.
I gotta be honest... it was a little bit too lukewarm for me. Let me elaborate.
I heard a lot about this trilogy and about Jay Kristoff in general (this is the first book of his that I read), and I expected something absolutely amazing and that would blow me away. I distinctly remember that when the Italian translations of Nevernight came out they were all over the place for at least a month. I expected some Six of Crows level of mindblowery, but I just didn’t find what I expected.
Starting with the positive things. I really loved the word building and the aesthetic of it. I found it very coherent, even if sometimes the different names for things that literally are the same were a bit annoying (like how he uses mornmeal/midmeal/evemeal, in my opinion they are unnecessary, but I get that they contribute the immersion into the fantasy word). I also really loved the characters, even though their relationships were a bit weird. Like, Mia talks with someone for three times and all of a sudden they are lovers/best friends/class buddies. They lack some deepness in a way. I also loved the magic behind everything and I am genuinely curious to find out more about that one in the next two books. I liked the blood magik, the tenebris stuff and everything.
Now onto the things I didn’t particularly like... the pacing was really weird. I wanted to go on with the story, but at the same time all the key episodes were presented in such an anticlimactic way. Every single plot twist I was like ‘okay I didn’t see it coming, but why am I not surprised as I should be?’. So yeah. Just not the best pacing and timing, I really had to force myself to read some parts.
So overall, not bad. But not excellent either. Just slightly above average. I will go on with at least the second book, to see if anything changes (and also because I really shipped Mia with Lord Cassius so I want to know what happens now lol).
