didyousaybooks's reviews
2949 reviews

This is the type of YA that, while new, feels really familiar, and that’s good thing when it works. And The Luminaries really worked for me. 

It’s mysterious, a school(ish) setting, family drama and monster fighting, all of that in an enclave of “our” world and stereotypical and yet compelling characters. 

What I mean by “stereotypically compelling” is that they are the characters you expect in a YA story and it just works. Nothing extraordinary but when well done, it’s exactly what you’re looking for. 

And I found The Luminaries to do this quite well. 

Who knew that after DNFing it a couple years ago because I just wasn’t in the mood, I would have such a blast with this book?!

I mean, I’m not that surprised because it is a well loved series, I’m just happy to join the Abercrombie readers to finally be able to know what they’re talking about. 

I was on the edge of my seat, despite this book not having a lot of action, I just could stop reading when I finally sat down. 
The characters are so real, I was so frustrated with most of them and yet they are so endearing, each in a different way. 
Like absolutely violent, and brute and arrogant and yet, naive and loyal (ish) and stupid and smartly flawed.

And because I’m a character reader at the core, this is definitely my type of story. 
I also was not expecting to laugh like I did!

I just had a lot of fun, discovering this world, which is a nice surprise as this is grim dark. It certainly is, so much suffering, and as I’ve only read book one I gather it won’t stop here, but it did not feel depressing, if that makes sense? 

It’s exactly because it is labeled as Grim Dark that it took forever for me to finally pick it up again and give it another shot. 
I’m happy I did and can’t wait to continue the rest of the series! 

Good thing I have the boxset ready, as well as the trilogy on my kindle lol 

Very well researched. 

I overall enjoy this one more than the others because I feel like the characters are finally coming around for me - aka I don’t find them as annoying as before - but because it took me +5 months to read, I don’t feel it is quite a 4 stars for me. 

Though once I got to really read it (in the last couple days) I flew through it. But again, I started it in September and was really aiming to finish it this month so that helped. 

For a book series with so many characters, I find it a bit sad that I do not have any favorite. 
As a character driven reader, it certainly impacts my feeling about it.

Also, we get it: all the men characters have a crazy hard time understanding women…
I do get that the way the society is contructed in the series has a big impact with gender roles but still, I do find it a bit annoying to have lots of characters being so clueless and as a whole, while I’m aware and glad that the romantic relationships are not really a big part of the plot (yet at least), I think those interactions between all the “couples” or just characters of the opposite sex are the weakest point of the series to me. 

If I grow to love the characters more, I hope this changes.

So while this huge series isn’t a favorite, I’m still interested in the overall story and see how it will all play out. 
Because Jordan did craft a huge and complex universe, with many characters that have their own intrigues while still being connected to the main storyline, I’m intrigued.