Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

Nevernight is the first book I read from Jay Kristoff and I wasn’t disappointed. This book is full of bloody and violent deaths, awesome fights and brilliant characters. The book is near 650 pages long but its not an effort or a chore to read, once you start you can not stop until you have reached the last page. I was gripped from start to finish and was able to read this in about 5 days, any free time I had I was reading this book, I never wanted to put it down.

Nevernight is about a girl called Mia Corvere, who at the age of ten saw her father executed for being a traitor and her mother incarcerated into an asylum. Now with no family left she is on the run with only a mysterious shadow cat called Mister Kindly by her side. Eventually she is taken in my am old man who is a retired killer. He trains Mia so she is able to attend the Red Church, which trains people to be the most deadliest assassins in the city. She wants to be trained by the Red Church so she is able to get vengeance for what happened to her parents. Mia must learn how to be an assassin as well as staying alive because there is a killer on the loose killing other people within the Red Church.

After reading the very first chapter of Nevernight I knew this was going to be a great book. The first chapter began with two different events but they were mirrored together. At first I was a little unsure about this because it was a bit repetitive but by the end of the chapter I loved it so much I re-read the chapter again. Its a great way to introduce a character because it shows you two different personalities of them right from the start. I can see myself picking up the book time and time again just to read that first chapter.

Right from the start Mia is awesome, she is such a strong, determined and ruthless character, its hard to not like her. Throughout the book she develops into this brilliant kick ass character and its great to reach the end and realise you now have a new favourite book character. I think what is so likeable about her is that she is real and relatable. She is full of different emotion and a few times you see her acting out or being moody like any other teenager, and you are able to see a bit of yourself in Mia because you know that’s how you felt at that age. Jay Kristoff has managed to create a character that I think is relatable to all readers no matter what their age.

I loved Jay Kristoff’s writing, it was descriptive and engaging, I never wanted to put the book down. With the book being nearly 650 pages I thought it would take a couple of weeks to read, but Jay’s writing has a way of grabbing you and not letting you go until you read the whole book. By the end it felt like I read over a 1000 pages because I gained so much information from his writing. That doesn’t mean that the writing is full of information dumps because it isn’t, its got glorious gory action scenes, as well as some very steamy love scenes, that left me a little embarrassed when reading. You have fully developed characters that are a pleasure and a joy to read about. One thing that did annoy me a little was the footnotes left on some pages. I would rather have had them worked into the story then just added at the bottom of the pages.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. I think this is the sort of book anyone can give a go reading and would enjoy because it appeals to all sorts of readers. Whether you are looking for a character driven plot or a none stop action read, this book has it all. The beautifully built world and the brilliantly thought-out characters makes you want to just jump inside the book and be part of it. I can not wait for the next book in the series to be released and I’m sure that once you give this a read you will be itching for the next book also.