Nevernight

The early pages of this one were bit of a struggle, but I'm glad I perservered. Once you click with the author's slightly florid style, it becomes an engaging and enthralling story of a young girl's experiences in a school for assassins. There's an interesting setting, kind of Roman Republic meets 17th century Venice in a city built in the corpse of a dead god. There are footnotes aplenty, and they are pleasingly sardonic. The heroine is well drawn, but here lies my main grumble with the book. I'll try to keep it vague but SPOILERS from this point on- you have been warned.



All through the book we are in Mia's head. We are privy to her thoughts, her doubts and desires. The book isn't actually written in first person, but it's an incredibly tight third person narrative with no similar insights into the interior life of any other character. About two thirds of the way through, we discover Mia has been doing something in secret in order to gain an advantage and surprise her classmates. The problem is, it's been secret from us as well. We know all about her feelings for a fellow trainee, we know the secret of what happened to her parents to spark her on this journey, we know exactly what she's thinking at almost every moment. But we don't know this, and it's jarring to have it suddenly revealed at exactly the point in the story where it becomes useful. It feels like a cheat, like the author has sacrificed the integrity of the character and the story for a brief moment of cool. It shatters the narrative spell and cheapens Mia's efforts. If it wasn't for this, Nevernight would be close to five stars. There's a lot of good stuff here, and it shouldn't be spoilt by one miscalculation. But it kind of is.