SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Book of Night by Holly Black

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Book of Night by Holly Black: https://t.co/3cPsPKt84z

Short Review: 7 out of 10 -Black's "Adult" debut is a dark fantasy noir in a world where shadows form the basis for mysterious and coveted magic, & a young woman con artist takes one more job...
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) August 25, 2022

Short Review (cont): ...to get involved in the workings of shadow-wielding Gloamists, only to find herself caught in a web intrigue centered around a monstrous human from her past. It's a solid novel, but it just never really hit that higher level for me like Black's YA work
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) August 25, 2022

Book of Night is the first "Adult" novel by author Holly Black, known for her highly successful YA work, of which I've enjoyed what I've read (The Folk of the Air trilogy is really enjoyable).  It's kind of similar in that vein to Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House - both in that it is the first ostensibly "Adult" novel from a successful YA author and in that it features a cynical noirish protagonist in a woman desperate to move forward in some way while also finding herself drawn to trouble and wrong decisions.  I actually liked Ninth House a bunch, and well given my love of Black's YA stuff (which I think works just fine for adults), you'd think I'd really enjoy Book of Night.  

And well....Book of Night is solid, and enjoyable kind-of....and yet it never really clicked with me like I wanted, making me kind of nonplussed at the ending (which offers the possibility for a 2024 sequel while also working as a stand alone).  The world and atmosphere involved works somewhat well, and the main characters work well enough, but there's a number of leaps and assumptions here in the plot that just felt a bit like stretches too far, and I don't know, I guess the cynical dark world where a character who had a rough background just makes mistake after mistake until a final reveal just doesn't really do it for me anymore without much more thematically.  And I didn't really find much more here?  

Some more attempts at specifics after hte jump:
----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
Charlie Hall has spent most of her life as a con artist and thief, and until recently she was known as a specialist: a spy who worked for Gloamists, those who wielded magical shadows for dark purposes, and who craved knowledge and arts locked away and guarded jealously by other Gloamists.  Until recently she used her skills to keep robbing such Gloamists for money, for food, and for the thrill.  

But now she's no longer in the game, working mainly as a bartender, with a surprisingly dependable boyfriend in the Shadow-less Vince, and a sister desperate to obtain Shadow Magic for herself...a sister Charlie is desperate to try and put through school, even if she has to scramble for every dollar and cent to pay for it.  

Yet Charlie still longs for the game, and so when a girl she knows asks her to use her skills to track down her deadbeat boyfriend...a boyfriend who took her place as an inferior con-artist and thief of Gloamist texts...she soon finds herself back on a dangerous quest for a text that everyone wants, and more than one person is willing to kill to gain.  The quest will bring her back to the attention of the one man she dreads the most, a rich and powerful man responsible for one of Charlie's worst memories, and will force her to really choose what and who it is she cares for, and how far is she willing to go to fight for them....if doing so is even possible in the first place....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Book of Night is a noirish novel that takes place mostly from the perspective of its protagonist Charlie Hall.  I say mostly, because the book tries some tricks - it starts with a prologue whose relevance doesn't become apparent for some time, and then occasionally, in chapters titled "The Past", flashes back to first Charlie's....and then another person's past (I won't spoil who).  Charlie's narrative generally works well, explaining various concepts about this book's Shadow-related magic and how it has made this world different in some ways to our own (while also being very similar).  

Of course, like every noir-ish type story, it really depends in large part upon its central protagonist.  And Charlie is a solid lead heroine in a typical mold for noir.  So she's got the troubled past that is slowly revealed - mother making bad choices forcing her to drastic measures to try and chase away one really bad potential stepparent, and whose later potential stepparent got her involved in con-games and thievery (which is all I'll say without spoiling).  She's got the urge to get back into those con games and dangerous scut-work, especially around Gloamists, even as she's sort of determined to stay out of them and try instead to find someway to support her sister through college....something her sister doesn't really want (what her sister really wants is to get magic of her own).  She's the classic "keeps making bad calls and she knows it heroine" and the book does that well, especially when it come with her need to keep meddling until it gets her into trouble. 

And well that's fine but well....I don't know it just didn't really click for me even though the story works well enough mechanically.  The crapsacky world with the shadow magic just wasn't I guess super interesting enough to keep me super invested, and Charlie's story was just not unique enough to really draw me super in.  The antagonist is just the typical evil asshole - a rich man desiring power and willing to do horrible things to achieve it - and the side characters are fine, but other there aren't really any of substance aside from Charlie, her boyfriend Vince (and one Spoiler Character), and her sister Poesy....and even that Spoiler Character, who is a significant significant character (and who will play in a role in the eventual sequel) just never really feels more than skin deep. 

Like it's unfair to compare this to Ninth House, as the two books aren't super similar other than being Noir and the author's backgrounds.  But that book at least had some real interesting ideas about class to backstop the novel, as it took place in its college setting, and while there's some underpinnings of that here, it's also kind of skin deep and not really developed in any real substance.  So the fact that so much of this book just felt like other stuff I'd read and didn't really stand out, made it kind of hard to care that much, or even to find things to talk about.  Book of Night is fine - there's no part of this book that reads offensive, and the story is developed fairly such that the conclusion makes complete sense.  But there just isn't the value added I look for in books, to make me really enjoy them, and that's what holds this one back, and makes it so that I'll be very tenuous about reading the sequel.