Posts Tagged: Diverse YA

I received this book for free from Razorbill in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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.

I think there is this general conception that for a fantasy novel to be truly good, it needs to have about a 1,000,000 pages and at 304 pages, Beasts Made of Night is not a particularly long book. Do not and I repeat do NOT let that fool you. Tochi Onyebuchi packs a fucking punch in those 304 pages. World building? You got it. Adventure? You got it. A mother-fucking rebellion? YOU GOT IT. Beasts Made of Night isn’t just a great novel for fantasy readers but also for people too vary of the genre because of its reputation for long-winded novels that take lifetimes to get through.

Onyebuchi has a background in screenwriting and honestly, the high stakes and the quick pace of the novel really reflect this. For some people, this might be a bad thing because it might seem as a compromise on the world building but I definitely did not think that was true for the novel. The world of Beasts Made of Night is so incredibly rich and I felt myself being transported to it through detailed descriptions of foods, social settings, etc.

I think the only time the short length of the novel might have been a drawback is that it does mean we don’t get a leisurely introduction to the world that allows us to ease into a new setting that happens in so many fantasy novels but once I got used to being in the world of Kos, I found myself fascinated by the world Onyebuchi had crafted for his readers.

And perhaps my fascination with the world building shows because I’ve just spent two paragraphs talking about it but don’t you worry because Beasts Made of Night is also equipped with characters you want to root for. Taj is a complex character who is in flux like many teens (fantastical or not) and he is easy to relate to even if we may not always be stressing out about the same things. His internal struggles as he tries to understand the spectrum of good/bad is so real and I love how Tochi Onyebuchi writes his coming of age.

There are a number of secondary characters that aid Taj on his mission many who are worth mentioning but I won’t because I am lazy (but also because there are SO MANY of them.) I love that even though Taj has lone wolf vibes all over him, he still has friends? Who like him (most of the times)? And SUPPORT HIM? I know, so many surprises here.

There are so many reasons this book is worth reading and I honestly cannot even begin to formulate the words to really get these points across so I’d just like to kindly push y’all to read this book and join me in my little fangirl bubble while we wait to hear news about a Book 2.

Giveaway!

Three (3) winners receive:
One (1) hardcover copy of Beasts Made of Night

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between 12:00 AM Eastern Time on October 2, 2017 and 12:00 AM on October 23, 2017.  Open to residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia who are 13 and older. Winners will be selected at random on or about October 25, 2017. Odds of winning depend on number of eligible entries received. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

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