Nevernight by Jay Kristoff 
☀️☀️⛅

An elongated fantasy that relies too heavily on its solid concept and quirky writing style without delivering anything beyond the base standard.

I wanted to like this story but for several reasons I struggled to engage with it. Kristoff's writing style skews younger and employs humour (which often isn't that funny) to balance out the 'darkness' of the whole assassin school thing, but I found this juxtaposition jarring more than alleviating. The addition of footnotes really grated me because they seemed to be the only attempt at world building, which felt really lazy and often pulled me out of the story so much I had to stop reading them altogether. I will admit that some of the metaphors used were effective but overall there were far too many - the prose overall felt bloated and the dialogue sparse enough to be awkward. 

The skill and edginess of the MC didn't align with reality most of the time, and Mia's interactions with her peers and educators often came across as nothing more than opportunities to prove how much of a badass she is. She ultimately felt like a compilation of what young teens might think is 'cool' - a sixteen year old killer who smokes and has an unexplained shadow power - but wasn't expanded beyond that. The focus on her physical 'enhancement' during school felt gross (we see you, male gaze) and the sex scenes were undeniably cringy. The supporting characters were at least identifiable, but once again they were painted as one dimensional and most behaved too immaturely to be believable. 

The actual plot was remarkable simple and only once was I surprised by a turn of events. I wanted much more depth of character and legitimate world building for the page count but was left unengaged and wanting more. I don't plan to continue this series due to these issues, but I should acknowledge that I think my sixteen year old self probably would have enjoyed it much more.