Night Spinner by Addie Thorley

DNF @ p.72

When I found out that NIGHT SPINNER was inspired by The Hunchback of Notre Dame I was so excited. It didn't even matter whether it was truer to the book by Victor Hugo or the Disney movie, I love them both for different reasons, and they're both so deliciously dark (with flawed, dark male leads-- my kryptonite). I also really enjoyed the other book of Addie Thorley's, AN AFFAIR OF THE POISONS, which I also received as an ARC earlier this year. How could this possibly go wrong?

There's a sub-genre of YA fantasy that I refer to as Basic Girl Fantasy, which become popularized by Sarah J. Maas, but also consists of authors like Renee Ahdieh and Maggie Stiefvater. It's young adult that doesn't have any substance. It's all flash in the pan. Once you peel back the pretty words and basic feminist characters, you're left with something that feels cheap and tawdry.That's how I felt about NIGHT SPINNER. It's fantasy that doesn't really deep dive into its world-building. The characters are all two dimensional and so kick butt... without any cause.

I actually found reading this to be so incredibly dull. In seventy pages, nothing of note happened. I don't think I've been this disappointed since I picked up Emily Duncan's WICKED SAINTS, another book that purported to be dark and Gothic fantasy and left me wanting more-- more of something else, that is, because that book obviously didn't cut it. I know a lot of these YA fantasy books aren't written for fantasy genre readers but giving them a free pass because of that doesn't give credit to the authors who do go the extra mile to write richly imagined worlds for their young audiences.

I'm sorry to say that this highly anticipated read was, for me, a major miss.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review! 

1 out of 5 stars