Beautifully written, as all Holly Black books are!

The pacing feels a bit slow in the beginning, but I got really invested at some point. Can't wait for more.

I've been putting this one off for the longest time and I just don't think I'm ever going to get around to it.

I love Holly Black but I've heard so many mixed reviews about this one that I'm scared to read it and I don't want to hate it. I think I'll read it in the future when I've managed to forget all the reviews.

I'm so sorry!

I'm not generally a big holly Black fan and was certainly one of the minority who did not enjoy the Cruel Prince series but I enjoyed this one much more. There was nothing spectacular to identify this as adult vs her other young adult tiles.
For me, it has the slow meandering plot of dark academia - no plot just vibes. Im not sure if i will continue in the series but I'm glad I read this one.

Book of Night was a true disappointment.
First of all, it should be an adult book but feels like a ya with some more mature themes or older character, but there are no elements othere than these two and they are not enough.
The plot was there... it wasnt' very interest and the whole book dragged on without sould. Not impressed, i think the whole concept is the best part of the book but it's not well developed.

I feel terrible as I did not get a chance to read it as it reached the archive date. First time happening to me on Netgalley. I'll be extra vigilant next time.

I loved Holly Black's YA series The Cruel Prince, but have since moved on to read a lot more adult fantasies and a bit away from YA, so I was quite excited to hear that she'd come out with this adult novel! Unfortunately, The Book of Night felt to me like a YA book with a slightly older character who nevertheless still reads like a young teen, and the plot just felt so predictable that I could not muster any enthusiasm for this book at all.

This sampler did not interest me enough to make me pick up the full book. The writing was good, but I was not invested in the plot or characters.

Riding the Folk of the Air enthousiast wave, I was ectatic to read this excerpt of Holly Black's recent adult publication. However, the writing was so distincly different that made me realise I was attempting to relive The Cruel Prince's magic in a completely different setting and under a very different set of circumstances. Might have set myself up for disappointment here, but it is often the case when we readers expect authors to essentially write the same book in order to evoke the same emotions. In the spirit of picking up The Casual Vacancy after having finished the Harry Potter books.
I'm not convinced the protagonist was intriguing enough for me, however I may give this a second chance in the future.

Holly Black is an auto-buy for me - and my god this one was simply incredible !! It's different than her usual ones, but I really enjoyed Book of Night !

I thought I was requesting the whole book when I asked for this so sad that it's not BUT it definitely sounds like it's my kind of thing so looking forward to reading the whole book after this delicious sneak peak!

As soon as I seen Holly Black was releasing a new book I new I had to read it fast! This book lived up to my expectations and I only read an extract! it is such a good start to her adult fantasy journey. The world building is utterly beautiful. This is a dark book and I can not wait to read the rest!

This was an extract so i can only review the first few chapters. But it has a great start and I’m very intrigued by the shadows and how they all work. I can not wait to read more and hopefully enjoy the rest of the book.

“Too often, people acted like her curves were some engraved invitation.”

“Charlie stayed wrapped up in her blanket. She didn’t want to go back into that claustrophobic room, air thick with her own mistakes.” #HollyBlack #BookOfNight

Books: 1 /2

Genre: #Mystery #YA #Fantasy

After finishing this book, my first thought was: “What’s wrong with me?”. I always say that I’m not reading over-hyped books, but then end up picking them.

This book was not my cup of tea, there wasn’t anything I liked about it, but then again, I wasn’t a huge fan of #TheAirFolk , enjoyed the first book though.

I know it’s YA and I shouldn't've expected much, but this book is literally for people under 16, despite the fact that main character is older. There is so many puberty problems, most of the reading I spent with this expression....

Okay, the plot... Charlie Hall is a thief with a lot of traumas and love problems. She starts dating “perfect guy” with his own skeletons in the wardrobe.

She lives in the world where shadows can be manipulated, fed on blood and bad emotions. There are people who seek the power of the shadow and they are ready to do nasty things for that power.

There is a belief that by finding ancient book, you can bring your shadow form back to live, everyone seems to be after it.

The concept of the book is fairly interesting, but I was bored. I find that author is pouring a lot of water with unnecessary descriptions. Happened the same in the Air Folk...

Conclusion... HB isn’t my author, but if you like easy, slow-paced reads with personal thoughts give it a go. :)

I wasn't too sure what to expect from this as Holly's first venture into Adult Fantasy, I enjoyed it but definitely not as much as her Young Adult works.

I just really did not enjoy this book. I have read the entirety of The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black and that had such good world-building and vibrant characters. The characters had chemistry with each other and I wanted to keep reading more. Alas... characters in this book felt flat and I did not really care for the mystery. There was only one character I cared about and they were not in the book as much as I wanted them to be.
Overall, I don't know if I would be excited ti read any sequels.

I’m pretty intrigued. What’s with the changing shadows? How ingrained is the magic in this world? A tasty teaser!

Didn't realise when I requested this that it was only a sample of the first few chapters. It has caught my interest and I have now purchased the book to read it all

I dont think I understood this was a sample as I sat down to read this book and realized its just a few chapters. I do not think it worked because it was dreadfully boring and the amount of characters being introduced and not developed felt like an overload. I also think the chapters chosen for this sample were the wrong ones as they were not exciting or written in a way where you want the rest of the book. I think i will wait for this to be an audio book and try again

I went in this book almost blind, simply because it’s Holly Black, so I was surprised at first to see that this book is a true Urban Fantasy story. Surprised, but definitely happy because UF if my absolute favorite genre.
This universe is complex and fascinating, it was such an original take on shadows and magic, I was really engrossed in the world-building.
It took me a while to read the book, but not in the least because it was boring. I fell in love with Charlie as soon as I read her thoughts and was so completely invested in whatever she was doing that I had to take breaks when I thought things weren’t salvageable. I loved her sister Posey and was rooting so hard for her relationship with Vince.
The rhythm felt pretty slow for the first two-thirds of the book, but the last third had me on the edge of my seat and it was really hard to put the book down and go to work.
The ending had me both glad some things were resolved and screaming because I now need to read the second book more than I need to breathe.

I am not a fervent fan of Holly Black, but I've read The Folk of Air trilogy and I really liked how she writes lore and fantastic elements in her books a bit darker and a bit weirder, but also kind of beautiful.
This was actually the reason I wanted to read her first fantasy book intended for older audience. The premise sounded fun: urban fantasy with magic system based on shadows which means dark coupled with problematic character which means darker than dark- basically perfect for me.
My expectations were not met in either of those, but I still had fun reading it .
Let's start with the world:
-Magic system is not hard to understand: People's shadows can sort of awaken and act as extension of their will, so they can send them to places they can't go physically in or in some cases they can enhance or give the people who wear them abilities. These peoples are called gloamists. Some wear their shadows as an accessory, giving it adornments like horns or tails, sort of like shadow cosmetics. Some want to know the secrets and understand the magic behind the shadows. And some use it for more nefarious purposes, using them as an intimidation tactic and even murder. So, shadows are a new and booming business, that's not entirely understood and there is a constant need to be regulated in some way. This is the job of Cabal, the group of most powerful gloamists and their hunters called Hierophants. This all sounds fun, right? It definitely is, but it's sort of unfinished as well. You are left with a lot of questions about symbiotic relationship between gloamists and their shadow(s), about people whose shadows are stolen, about Blights and their life span. Are they even alive? Stuff like that which, I guess, can be answered in next book. But there are some huge secrets that are revealed about shadows for everyone in the book( including Cabal) by the end of the book and it's sort of weird to think nobody figured out before considering shadows are such a huge part of everyday life. So, it all reads like there was an idea about the magic system, but it's like Black didn't quite figured out the mechanics behind it and how to incorporate it in modern world.
The fairytales about shadows were great which, once again, proves lore bits are still Black's greatest strength.
-Which brings me to Charlie, the girl who we are repeatedly told is a mess. "Never met a bad decision she wasn’t willing to double down on." I love complicated, unlikeable, massive fuck-ups of characters and, frankly, if you're familiar with urban fantasy you'd know they are kind of a staple. They are all in a bad way, before they deal with some things in the course of series. So, I didn't have problems with that. I think my biggest problem was that we met Charlie who seems to have lived quite a life before (being a con artists, being "Charlatan", surviving some hard things and met some bad people) and it's miles more interesting than what's she's dealing with now. I can't reconcile that person from the blurb, who is "born crooked" and whatever else it's said about her dramatically in the book, with Charlie we got. I kind of wanted the whole book to be about her childhood or her cons. She is not even that selfdestructive and dark now as I was meant to believe she was before. Alex Stern from Ninth House? Way more darker than this.
And it's not just her. I was detached from most of the characters, because they sounded like concept ideas you see on pinterest, but in a book just kind of are.
-Plot was actually good and it kept me turning pages. Murder, Charlie being hired and conning some bad guys... It's actually the most noir thing about this book not the Shadows or the Book of Night thing. Even her relationship is with a great, but secretive guy who looks like trouble and keeps some secrets- noir, right? Ending didn't quite land because of the whole blight revelation that made me question some previously stated postulates about the magic system, but it is the most reckless thing Charlie's done in the novel- too bad it's after the culmination scene and it sets up next one.
If that's not obvious by now, I hope there is a sequel where Black straightens up a bit the whole Shadows as a part of modern world thing and she takes the gloves off with Charlie and proves us why is she Charlatan and "has a shriveled cherry pit for a heart". Those are fun and clever lines, but if you don't show it, they work as statements only when you put them on an old paperback horror novel cover and nothing else.

All in all, not a great book, but I love when authors step away from the genre they are popular in and try something else. So, not sorry I've read it at all. :)