Nevernight turned out to be a deeply fascinating book on many levels: first, the background, a world where three suns always burn in the sky so that true night falls only once every two years or thereabouts, having therefore given birth to a belief system in which Light won its long battle against Darkness, so that everything connected to the latter is viewed with fear and distrust (and, not surprisingly, the Red Church adepts who worship the Goddess of Night, are marked as heretics). Not to mention the deadly perils and the slowly brewing conspiracy that she will have to face…
The challenges Mia faces at the Red Church are not just about physical prowess, the ability to use poisons or her ninja skills, but also – and more importantly – about how she relates to other people and the rest of the world, and the way she sees herself in light of her ultimate goal. Yes, because this… academy for killers is no picnic: imagine a teaching body who does not care if their pupils die in training, or who choose to impart stern lessons by actually maiming the students! Landing by chance in the shop of old Mercurio, who is affiliated to the Red Church (what you might call a school for assassins), Mia starts to learn the skills she will need to exact her vengeance against all those who destroyed her family: six years later, she is ready to be enrolled in the Red Church, where her abilities will be honed to perfection – provided she survives, of course. In the worst moment of her life, however, Mia discovered an ally she never knew she had: a feline-shaped creature made of shadows, that helped her escape her captors and showed her how she could manipulate darkness herself.
Young Mia Corvere lost everything when she was just ten years old: her father, one of the most prominent figures in the Itreyan Republic, was hanged after his failed coup against the Republic’s ruling body her mother and baby brother imprisoned in the foulest place imaginable and Mia herself destined to be drowned on the order of the consul her father was unable to unseat.
Jay Kristoff is one half of the writing team that brought us The Illuminae Files, a science fiction series that went a long way toward curing me of my distrust for YA characters, so that I did not think twice about tackling this solo work by Kristoff once I learned that the protagonist is a teenager – and my leap of faith was more than rewarded, indeed…
0 kommentar(er)
