Hello everyone! Welcome back to The Bibliophagist!! I am so happy to see you all here again, that means you haven’t gotten tired of me yet. Well, this week has already been exciting. My inlaws and I did a thing yesterday…we bought twelve baby chicks!
They are all egg-laying hens, so we are really excited. We go through a lot of eggs here a house of six and all…especially with 4 adults (my husband, my inlaws, and myself) all living Keto. By the way, Keto is amazing…in case you didn’t know.
I am going to be putting up a writing update post this week, watch for exciting news in that one. Although this month has been crazy busy…and I mean super crazy…it has been productive. I haven’t been reading as much because it is finally getting nicer outside and that means, well…work. I’ve started helping my father-in-law with the beehives. I love learning things so learning about caring for bees is super fun to me. We cleaned up a little outside yesterday as well. Now I can’t wait for it to really warm up so that we can get in the pool! It is calling me. Oh to be able to lay in a chair reading a good book in the sun…
Well, enough dreaming of good weather, let’s move on to today’s review. Beasts Made of Night caught my attention right away and I knew that I wanted to read this book.
Beasts Made of Night (Beasts Made of Night #1)
Author: Tochi Onyebuchi
Published: October 31st, 2017
Publisher: Razorbill
Book Length: 298 Pages
Genre: Fantasy (YA)
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥
Buy the book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository (Use my referral ID: TheBibliophagist)
In the walled city of Kos, corrupt mages can magically call forth sin from a sinner in the form of sin-beasts – lethal creatures spawned from feelings of guilt.
Taj is the most talented of the aki, young sin-eaters indentured by the mages to slay the sin-beasts. But Taj’s livelihood comes at a terrible cost. When he kills a sin-beast, a tattoo of the beast appears on his skin while the guilt of committing the sin appears on his mind. Most aki are driven mad by the process, but 17-year-old Taj is cocky and desperate to provide for his family.
When Taj is called to eat a sin of a royal, he’s suddenly thrust into the center of a dark conspiracy to destroy Kos. Now Taj must fight to save the princess that he loves – and his own life.
A gritty Nigerian-influenced fantasy.
Let’s start by looking at this amazing cover! I absolutely LOVE the detail in this! Each smaller animal is placed to make the image of a larger beast. These are sin beasts, you’ll learn more about them in the novel. This was just so eye-catching that I knew I had to pick it up and read the description. The cover or a book is what needs to grab my eye so that I read the summary. This one did that, it made me want to own it without even reading it!
Unfortunately, I did not love the story as much as I hoped. I felt the plot was unstable and jumpy. It moved sporadically and was hard to follow at times.
I really loved the idea of the story and the tattoos, one for each sin. I liked the class hierarchy and how it is presented. The idea that being clear skinned is sinless and tattoos on your skin represent sins was a little unnerving but I knew the deeper premise was not malicious. Some might have taken that more deeply to say the author was inherently saying those with tattoos are seen as sinners, which isn’t all wrong. How many times has someone covered in tattoos been automatically thought of as a biker or something similar…? Exactly.
I think my biggest problem was not feeling fully engaged in the story. It just didn’t pull me in the way I hoped it would. To really enjoy a book I need to be immersed in not only the world but its characters and plot. Here, I simply wasn’t.
This was my favorite part of the entire book! The background was described perfectly, though I did have a few questions I was not left confused. I fell in love with the details used to describe events. I felt that I was standing before the giant lion sin beast as it was battled and ultimately killed. I felt the fear of fighting the dragon sin beast as I saw it moving closer. The imagery was great and the world in and of itself was well built. For this reason, I think this book would make a fantastic movie.
There were some Nigerian elements to this story and I was not familiar with them but I welcomed the diversity and chance to learn about another culture.
Taj: The main character in the book, he was enjoyable enough but I didn’t completely connect with him. I didn’t really connect with any character for that matter. I think the characters were alright but could have used a little more development. He was fun to read about but I really wanted to be in his head more, find what made him tick, etc.
I think many of these characters seemed two dimensional, they just fell sort of flat for me.
I fell in love with the cover but I think the story needs some work. Maybe it gets better in the second book, who knows! I did love the world building and the detailed fight scenes with he Aki and sin beasts. I really enjoyed the class system and history, but the pace was slow at times and the plot was too jumpy. Just when I thought I was falling into the book, something happened to pull my attention right back out. It wasn’t a bad book but I think it could use some work. A great premise but the execution fell flat for me. Don’t take my word for it alone though, many have loved this book but personally, it wasn’t the best for me. I think I might try the second one though with the hope it gets better.
Would you read this novel? Buy it or borrow it? If you have read it, what did you think? Have you ever picked up a book based on the cover and not loved it? Which book was that?
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Great review! I love the cover too and the story sounds fantastic! It’s a shame you didn’t enjoy it as much as you hoped, I have added this to my TBR though as I might try it out for myself.
It is a good book i just couldn’t get fully into it. I’m still going to try the second one
the cover is gorgeous, it sounds like an interesting read