ARC Review: Book of Night by Holly Black

In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.

Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.

• Title: Book of Night
• Author:  Holly Black
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication Date: May 3rd 2022
• Genre: Fantasy 
• Source: Digital ARC obtained via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review)
• Targeted Age Range: Adult.
• Content Warnings: blood, self-inflicted harm/violence, cancer, gore, violence, death, murder, child abuse, toxic living situations, depression, grief depiction, panic attacks, anxiety, gun violence, drinking, brief mention of alcoholism, drugging, throwing up, captivity
• Rating: ★★

I’ve never read a Holly Black book before, so you can only imagine my excitement when I got an ARC of Book of Night! Of course, I’ve heard lots about The Folk of the Air, and I know a lot of people who love the trilogy, but fae has never really been my thing. I was drawn into Book of Night for many reasons, one of them being the comparison titles to The Night Circus and Ninth House (which I’m currently still reading)! 

Book of Night follows low-level con artist Charlie Hall, as she’s thrown into a world far more dangerous than the one she knows, as a means for survival. In her world, shadows can be altered for a number of reasons: cosmetics, influence, power — but with a cost. Shadows are a second self, the not so shiny bits of you, and sometimes can even take on a life of its own. 

I’m not sure if it was my own built up expectations based on everyone’s love for Holly Black and the comparison titles, but I was a little disappointed by Book of Night. I felt like the concept and the potential was so high, but it fell flat for me. Perhaps, if I had gone in with lower expectations, I would’ve found myself enjoying this book more. 

The worldbuilding in Book of Night is truly fascinating; I was really intrigued by the concept of “shadows” as they exist in that world, and how one can be separated by their shadow. In a way, it reminded me a little bit of Peter Pan, when Peter is looking for his shadow. That being said, it was hard for me to get invested in the world of Book of Night. Again, this is my first Holly Black novel, so I’m not sure if this is just how she writes, but there was a lot of product placement. Every pop culture reference — and I mean every; there were copious amounts of them — took me out of the story. I really think that this book could’ve done without every mention of Crocs, Sephora, etc. etc. etc. A few mentions here and there would’ve been fine, but there were just so many. I was already having a hard time getting a grasp of the world and how shadows work, I didn’t need the distractions of product placement too. I don’t think I fully understood the worldbuilding until I was well over halfway through the book, and even now, I can’t explain what the shadows do, or their roles. 

I didn’t particularly enjoy the characters either; I found Charlie to be very reminiscent of 2014-era YA girlboss heroines — although this time, Book of Night is an adult novel, not YA. I didn’t find her particularly likable, nor did I particularly dislike her, which really just sums up my feelings about this book — I was left feeling pretty indifferent about it. I admired her desire to keep those she loved safe, and her drive, but that was pretty much it. There were a lot of side characters introduced, and after a while, I struggled to differentiate between all of them. 

Book of Night really just seemed to drag on; I was tempted to DNF it several times, but I was intrigued by the plot and desperately wanted to finish it just to see what happened. While I don’t think Black’s writing and I didn’t particularly mesh, I will say that the imagery in Book of Night is spectacular. I could so easily visualize the events of Book of Night, and would love to see it adapted as a film. I think it’d do spectacularly! There were many quotes that I did highlight, and something that I said was “I think the tumblrinas will eat this book up”.  

Regardless of my complaints and disappointments, I was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns that Book of Night contained. I’m unsure if Book of Night is a standalone, or will have a sequel, because the way Book of Night ends seems to set it up for a sequel. If there is a sequel, I’ll probably pick it up and reassess my opinions on Book of Night. I don’t doubt that many readers will love Book of Night, but it simply was a miss for me. 

Links for Book of Night: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound