Book of Night - Target Exclusive Edition by Holly Black (Hardcover)

A wonderful tale filled with magic, shadows and murder. A retired thief must embark on her most dangerous job yet in order to save her boyfriend and hopefully take down the most ruthless leader of the council in the process. Lots of plot twists and per usual from Holly Black, amazing world building.

This is storytelling in style. Usually I'm that person who can guess how things are going to go from reading a few chapters, but Book of Night is fresh and twisted and unpredictable. That alone is cause for excitement. Also exciting is the magic system! The rules are a little dense at first (but what good magic system isn't?), but once you get it, you get it. Our shadows are the worst of us, imbued with everything we push down: all our uncomfortable experiences, and our rage and our hatred. What happens when that part of you can run amok? Or it's stolen? Or it's damaged? What then do you become? This book has the answers for some. Something Charlie Hall says in the book: being a con artist is like always being told that they'll get caught one day, and that becomes less of a warning and more of a dare. That idea really struck me, and that's essentially who Charlie Hall is. She's the best; she's flashy; she could steal the breath from your lungs. I love her snark. And she's so smart and resourceful. She's made so many bad choices in her life, and she's egged on to keep making them. She's aware of it. But she's a character who knows that sometimes, a LOT of times, all the choices available are bad. Her relationships with her family, her boyfriend, her past: they're all so messy and complex on the page. It really does feel as though Holly Black breathed life into her. There's so much more I could gush about. I devoured Book of Night in less than a week, and it was the perfect reading experience. Holly Black has taken all the stars for her adult debut.