Book Review: Nightstruck by Jenna Black

 
 
When Becket unknowingly opens a door between worlds and lets dark magic loose upon Philadelphia, strange and terrifying things start happening every night as soon as the sun goes down---like inanimate objects changing, coming to life, and killing people. Then the night magic starts calling to certain people and luring them in, making them just as dangerous as the objects, if not more. As problems continue to escalate, Becket tries to figure out how to keep her loved ones safe, even as the magic calls to her personally and tries to convince her to become one of the nightstruck herself.

Book Review: Nightstruck by Jenna Black | books, reading, book covers, book reviews, fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, horror, YA
Title: Nightstruck
Author:
Book Number: Book 1
Pages: 303
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
More Info: Goodreads, Amazon
 

Review:

*I received a free ecopy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

I was so excited when I saw this book because I LOVE the night, and I’ve always believed there’s magic in the night. So magic taking over and everything changing once the sun goes down was a completely irresistible premise to me. It didn’t matter that bad things were happening, it was still magic in the night!

And what the description promises (and what the cover shows) is exactly what happens. Some of the weirdness was pretty creative too. I was actually kind of freaked out during a couple scenes, just enough that it was fun, though the fact that I was alone in a dark room at night probably helped πŸ˜‰

The way the characters, and society as a whole, reacted to the crazy night magic was pretty realistic, so I also appreciated that. The main character made some questionable decisions sometimes, but that’s what teenagers do, and they were the kind of decisions you couldn’t really blame her for. The love interest was also a great person and easy to like. I think my favorite thing about the characters though was that this was a YA book that actually did NOT suffer from Crappy Parent Syndrome. Becket and her father didn’t always get along perfectly, but he was involved, and they loved each other, and I loved their relationship.

The thing about book though is that it just didn’t reach out and grab me. But I think this is one of those personal preference kind of things because it was not a poorly written book. It was just that the book was kind of subdued, middle-of-the-road, and I like books that are dark, intense, more towards the extremes. I thought this book would be somewhat like that (as much as YA ever is, at least), but instead it was fairly slow-paced and focused on suspense and creepiness—which is not a bad thing, just not quite my thing.

The main characters were also a little too likeable and perfect for my taste. They weren’t so perfect that it was unbearable, I just happen to like my characters broken, flawed, and/or brooding.

So overall, even though this book wasn’t as intense as I thought it would be, it had a great premise and some fun, creepy scenes (not give-you-nightmares creepy, just ooh-what’s-going-to-happen creepy) and was enjoyable to read.

 

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Have you read Nightstruck by Jenna Black?
What would you do if inanimate objects started coming to life at night?

 
 
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6 thoughts on “Book Review: Nightstruck by Jenna Black

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  1. Greg

    I love the premise of this one so I’m definitely going to read it, although I’m glad you mentioned the slow pace so I’ll be patient. πŸ™‚ I like the idea of stuff going wrong at night and frankly ever since seeing the manhole cover with teeth lol I was curious about this one. I almost wish this wasn’t YA and was more UF-ish… still it looks fun. Plus it looks like an ongoing from what I saw at amazon- is it open ended or is it pretty self contained?

    I’m kinda looking forward to seeing how weird it gets. πŸ™‚

    1. Kristen Burns

      I remember that you were interested in this one when I first mentioned it. The manhole cover with teeth has a whole scene, so you have that to look forward to, haha. That was probably my favorite thing about the book, the creativity of the weirdness. But as I said in my review, it wasn’t as intense as I had wanted it to be, so I too would’ve preferred if it wasn’t so YA, but YA seems to be the most popular thing right now, so we may be the minority on this lol.

      It’s definitely going to be a series. The ending was a bit of a cliffhanger. I’m kind of curious what’s going to happen in the next one after the way it ended, but I haven’t decided if I’m going to continue reading or not. I’ll probably wait and see what the blurb says, maybe read some other reviews.

  2. Lexxie @ (un)Conventional Bookviews

    The premise sounds amazing, Kristen, but I’m not sure I’d be all that happy with the slow pace. I have enjoyed Jenna Black’s books in the past, so I may decide to pick this up once the next one is out – I do not love cliffhangers.
    Great review πŸ™‚

    1. Kristen Burns

      This was my first Jenna Black book. The premise does sound amazing though, right? That’s why I immediately wanted it lol. The cliffhanger wasn’t that terrible, so I’m not going crazy needing to know what happens, but it does end right after something big happens. So I understand wanting to wait for the next book before starting. Thanks πŸ™‚

  3. Melanie Simmons @mlsimmons

    I really enjoyed this book. I thought that it did start off a little bit slow as it built into the crazy, but once things started to get weird, it was a quick read. I love how realistic the world felt. The reactions that the people had, etc. I’m very interested to see where the series goes from here.

    1. Kristen Burns

      Yeah, it was a slow start, but I still felt like it stayed somewhat slow. But yes, I loved the realistic way the characters responded, I’m glad I’m not the only who noticed that πŸ™‚ I haven’t quite decided whether to continue, but I might since the ending makes it seem like the next book could be even more interesting.