Genre: Fantasy Rating: 9/10

Impressions: Gut-wrenching, climactic, emotional rollercoaster

Jay Kristoff know how to break hearts.

Darkdawn is a book that will give you all the feels. It will either make you rage, or cry, or want to prop your eyes open with tiny matchsticks, or all three. Either way you won’t get out unscathed, but that’s just part of it’s appeal.

I’ve been a fan of Kristoff since his Lotus Wars series launched in 2012, and have followed his work closely since. Having read all his books, I feel well placed to say that this one doesn’t disappoint. Putting down one of Kristoff’s books is always an effort, and flipping the final page always makes my stomach flip in a way that that most books just can’t. Like all his books, Darkdawn will make you invested. There’s no way to explain it other than that you can’t help but care about the characters, and I think this is because they are so believable and relatable as people. There’s something real and imperfect and altogether human about the characters Kristoff creates, and it’s really refreshing to experience as a reader. This coupled with his dark imagination makes for a winning combination.

I loved the sense of suspense and tension that Darkdawn created. It’s littered with twists and turns that will take you further and further down a wonderful rabbit hole where nothing exists in black and white. If I could pick at one thing, I would say the romance and focus on sexual attraction was a little overdone. It definitely was essential to the story and the progression and motivations of the lead character, but sometimes was focused on too heavily. That being said, I find it impressive that the Nevernight Chronicles are sustained by love and violence interchangeably, it’s an interesting duo.

As a protagonist, Mia is pretty memorable as an all around badass. She’s more vengeful vigilante than hero, and makes some pretty questionable choices. Yet she’s so full of conviction and strength you can’t help but love her as a lead character. In this final book especially, you really get a sense of her struggle to not only survive, but also to be someone that she herself can live with. Kristoff has spoken about how he believes the best characters are those that want something with all their being, but can only get it in a roundabout way that they don’t expect, and usually through sacrificing something else. Brienne of Tarth is a perfect example of this, and now, so is Mia Corvere.