Sooo… I recently finished Darkdawn, which was one of my most anticipated releases of September, and… I loved it! I have some thoughts about the book, and I thought I’d share them here. This post will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t read Darkdawn/The Nevernight Chronical yet, and you plan on doing so, pleasepleaseplease don’t continue reading. I haven’t mastered the ability to write spoiler-free reviews yet, oops.
I’m on Twitter and I noticed a lot of people positively sobbing near the end of Darkdawn. I even knew which chapters would produce the most tears, so when I got there I was a little apprehensive.
Here’s the thing. This book didn’t go as I expected it to go. At the end of Godsgrave I honestly thought; “well, now every Darkin except one has to die, or else The Many can never be One.” So keeping that in mind, I thought that either Mia or Jonnen would die in one of those chapters people were sobbing about. Obviously this wasn’t the case and I was strangely relieved. What actually happened in that chapter still made me cry, but I honestly thought something like that was going to happen anyway. Honestly the most heartbreaking part of the book for me was when Mia sent Mr. Kindly away. I got up and hugged my cats after that.
One thing I thought that was funny in the book is when Mia covers Jonnen’s ears so he doesn’t hear their comrades’ colorful stories, but at the same time this nine year old child has seen people being murdered right in front of him. At first I thought that didn’t make sense at all, and I guess it still kind of doesn’t, but then I remembered this kid watched the entire venatus magni, so it’s probably okay.
To be even more honest, I thought the ending was very sudden. I expected a little more drama and explosiveness from it. I’m still happy with how the book ended (duh), but it felt a little bit too simple for me.
Lastly, I’m glad that some things in the book got cleared up. We finally found out how the heck Solis sees. I like that we found out Cloud’s real name and that it actually does start with a B. I love how Mercurio turned out to be the narrator all along. And I love it even more that this entire book makes fun of itself and the author. Mr. Kristoff is pretty genius.
Also I really like the footnotes. I think they add something to the world building in a way that is different from the standard.
And those are the thoughts I had that I was actually able to translate into normal-people words. What did you think of Darkdawn? Did you cry a lot? Do you think Jay Kristoff is so tall because he feeds on our despair? Let me know!
