Photo taken by Emboss&Spine (Litjoy edition)
Title: Nocturna
Author: Maya Motayne
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Baltzer + Bay
Publication Date: May 2nd, 2019
" Set in a Latinx-inspired world, a face-changing thief and a risk-taking prince must team up to defeat a powerful evil they accidentally unleashed.
To Finn Voy, magic is two things: a knife to hold under the chin of anyone who crosses her…and a disguise she shrugs on as easily as others pull on cloaks.
As a talented faceshifter, it’s been years since Finn has seen her own face, and that’s exactly how she likes it. But when Finn gets caught by a powerful mobster, she’s forced into an impossible mission: steal a legendary treasure from Castallan’s royal palace or be stripped of her magic forever.
After the murder of his older brother, Prince Alfehr is first in line for the Castallan throne. But Alfie can’t help but feel that he will never live up to his brother’s legacy. Riddled with grief, Alfie is obsessed with finding a way to bring his brother back, even if it means dabbling in forbidden magic.
But when Finn and Alfie’s fates collide, they accidentally unlock a terrible, ancient power—which, if not contained, will devour the world. And with Castallan’s fate in their hands, Alfie and Finn must race to vanquish what they have unleashed, even if it means facing the deepest darkness in their pasts "
Summary :
" Set in a Latinx-inspired world, a face-changing thief and a risk-taking prince must team up to defeat a powerful evil they accidentally unleashed.
To Finn Voy, magic is two things: a knife to hold under the chin of anyone who crosses her…and a disguise she shrugs on as easily as others pull on cloaks.
As a talented faceshifter, it’s been years since Finn has seen her own face, and that’s exactly how she likes it. But when Finn gets caught by a powerful mobster, she’s forced into an impossible mission: steal a legendary treasure from Castallan’s royal palace or be stripped of her magic forever.
After the murder of his older brother, Prince Alfehr is first in line for the Castallan throne. But Alfie can’t help but feel that he will never live up to his brother’s legacy. Riddled with grief, Alfie is obsessed with finding a way to bring his brother back, even if it means dabbling in forbidden magic.
But when Finn and Alfie’s fates collide, they accidentally unlock a terrible, ancient power—which, if not contained, will devour the world. And with Castallan’s fate in their hands, Alfie and Finn must race to vanquish what they have unleashed, even if it means facing the deepest darkness in their pasts "
Review :
First, the magic in Nocturna is amazing! It wasn’t just ordinary magic, it was elemental. So I was getting a lot of Avatar the Last Airbender vibes while reading it. Yes, that amazing. The other extension of magic comes from a person’s Propio which is in the form of their shadow. Each Propio is unique to an individual and blossoms from something in them. The main character Alfie, has elemental magic of water but his Propio lets him see magic in different shades and colors and is able to tap into another person’s color of magic and copy it. The other main character Finn has stone magic. Her Propio lets her change her and other people’s faces to whomever she wants them to be.
The plot of this book makes sense but the way it started doesn’t really make any. Dark evil magic that has been suppressed for a long time gets released and Finn and Alfie go on a journey to capture the evil and stop it from bringing the world back into Nocturna. But everything before the moment the magic gets released doesn’t really fit into the rest of the story. It felt like two different parts and I think more editorial time could have been spent cutting to make the story line cohesive. But that’s just me.
Lastly the topic of Finn and Alfie I am on the fence about. I’m all for enemies-turned-lovers and broody sarcastic banter, but their whole story felt like a snail running a race. I knew the story was coming to an end but my god I could only read about tension between two characters for so long.
I think having a comfortable friendship base is important in a relationship as a beginning stage but to have these characters just stare at each other, each think about their feelings toward the other, hug a couple of times, and hold hands one moment is ridiculous. They hit each other, get on one another’s nerves and maybe find a second when neither are angry to hold hands. It was juvenile and not at all a young adult type of romance.
Also the amount of times Finn says ‘Maldito’ is utterly ridiculous. It’s in almost every sentence she speaks. Seriously, did Maya’s editor not get annoyed or think it was too much? Imagine if a character said the word ‘like’ in every sentence. It would cheapen the character. That’s how I felt about Finn. Her character was written with too much force. We get that she is a badass thief but reading her felt like I was being forced to repeatedly remember she is tough.
Though the plot of Nocturna could have been arranged a bit differently, Finn could’ve been written a bit better, and the chemistry between Finn and Alfie could have been improved from the level of watching kids in kindergarten try to flirt, I most definitely will be looking forward to the sequel because I loved the magic in this book and Alfie as a character.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ ~ 4 Stars ~ Good Read!
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