This is shaping up to be one of the greatest reading months ever with another amazing book. It’s one of the easiest 5 stars ratings I have ever given and certainly an early candidate for book of the year and most certainly also an all time favorite.

It’s been a while since I read the first book in the series and while I thought it was very cool, especially with the whole “Castlevania-type” ambience I wasn’t fully invested and felt like the book had certain lengths and boring parts. I was holding off on reading the sequel for a long time because I wanted a physical copy (with paperback being my preferred format) because of all the cool illustrations (which were fantastic again in this book) and it just took a long time to get a hold of it.

Luckily the book starts you off with a really cool and atmospheric recap that just details what happened to each major character in book one (EVERY author writing a longer series needs to do that!). This already got me pretty pumped about diving into this really dark and gory world ruled by the Dead. A world without sunlight where you live in constant terror and humanity being more or less completely thralled by ancient and truly terrifying vampires. 

Combine those things with some pretty edgy humor and you have a recipe for success in my book. Also for vampires to work in a story they either need to be really silly or absolutely terrifying. Luckily these books give you both of those things!

This series also has the framing narrative of an unreliable narrator, probably the concept most famously featured in The Name of Wind / Kingkiller Chronicle and that is just a storytelling device I really dig. 

However this book ran into the same issue I had with the first one with it all feeling a little same-y and just getting a tad boring. But that all changed with the beginning of part three (~40% in) where the author pulled off an amazing twist on the unreliable narrator and that one reeled me back in so hard.

From that point onward I felt like the book just shifted into another gear and just didn’t let off the gas pedal until the end. Also all of that probably has immense reread value where you could dig out certain subtle clues. It was pretty damn genius. 

For a really thick Fantasy novel this one also has a ridiculously fast pacing especially in the later parts of the book.
 

The climax / final battle in itself was a roller coaster of emotions that left me breathless and in tears and afterwards there was such an intriguing epilogue that leaves you speculating and just wanting more of this story. 

I’m glad that the final book of this trilogy already comes out this year and I probably won’t be able to hold off on reading it until I get a physical copy.