Debora Souza

First of all, please forgive my eventual bad spelling. English is not my first language.

Ok, so, I've drowned in this world of reviews and got to reading the reviews with the least stars for some books I was finding interesting, so I came here wanting to see the reviews for a book I have read.
I've found lots of 1 or 2 star reviews and suddenly I felt the need to defend the fact that I actually liked this book/series quite a lot.

I have to start by saying I'm not into vampire books that much. Twilight was my very first experience with vampires and romance focused novels, and Darkness Before Dawn is just my second experience with romance focused teen stories, so there you go. I'm a fantasy/high fantasy girl that bought this book on a Kindle Daily Deal for lack of what to read on Kindle while waiting for the next Dresden Files to come out. Now there you have some cool vampires. But I digress, let's get back.

The important thing is, I don't know all the books people are saying are the originals, the great amazing books from which this one was clearly and poorly copied. So to me, coming straight from Twilight (I've read about real vampires since then, of course, including Dracula, but you get my meaning), this was completely different.

Things I don't like so much:

Victor falling for Dawn is all too sudden, all too unexplained. I like her take on things, she owes him her life but once she finds out he's a vampire she hates him, tries to forget him, fights her feelings, even “tries” to kill him, but he not once gets mad at her or stops coming after her even when she says she doesn't want him around. There's just nothing to fall so hard for in Dawn that he couldn't have found in 400 years. And I'm not even saying it's her fault, I actually like her.

The plot is pretty predictable... From the prologue I was already thinking what is her father hiding? Why does the big vampire lord want her to be delegate? It has to be the same thing. And as I got to books 2 and 3, yeah, there it was, dead right what I've been guessing.
Bad guy is obviously the bad guy, from the second he steps into the school. Only two things surprised me in this book: I was not expecting the Day Walker thing, so despite knowing Sin was the bad guy, I didn't know how. I think looking back it's just a smart plot device to give the books a way of moving forward since things are shaky between vamps and humans but are still manageble as long as vamps can only come out at night. The other thing was that the dead brother was the second vilian/monster.

Michael was for me by far the worst charachter, one day the perfect boyfriend/best friend, the next all needy and rebelious and wanting to hurt Dawn for her crime of acting responsible after all the horros she'd been seeing. I was expecting him to be like Galad from Wheel of Time, all “I'll do what's right no matter if it hurts me or those I love”, after all, he wants to be one of the elite vampire fighters, why in Hell would he endanger that for anything? I was so annoyed at him that I found myself hoping Dawn would do something very, very stupid and get very, very hurt or nearly killed just so he would feel guilty.

The writing. Would have been much, much easier to read and would flow much better if written in 3rd person instead of 1st.

Things I did like:

I really liked the worldbuilding. Again, this may be copied from other books, but I haven't read them, so for me this is all very new and different and I like the idea. I like the vampires taking over and messing up and ending up depending on donations while still trying to inspire fear. I like the war and the way humans lost and are now confined to walled cities. I don't really like that people refer to the world being like this, but we see and hear only about the US. How did other countries manage it? But considering the worldbuilding, they'd have no way of knowing, so that's kind of ok...

I do like Dawn. She's not perfect, she's not as badass as she'd like to, she's often scared, afraid or angry, she doesn't have the fighting skills she thinks she has and usually freezes when danger is close. But she knows all that and keeps going all the same, she wants to protect her friends and her city despite danger to herself, and she's just a teen after all. Coming back to my only other reference, she's just worlds ahead of Bella for me. And she simply refuses to be turned.

I like the small things that did surprise me, mentioned above, I like the things that are different from what I'd seen before, like the Day Walkers and the Thirst. I like the take on the cities and the Night Watchmen and the Night Train. I like Sin, how he's this obvious bad guy. Not that I like the way people just fall for him, but I like how he has everything planned from the start.

I also like the way the books are what a trilogy is supposed to be. They're one big story that could've been edited into one big book, but cut in the right places so that they feel somewhat closed, with their own developments and cliffs at the end. And it ends at the 3rd and that's it. I don't particularly like how everything played out at the end of book 3, some things seemed to be too easy or convinient and quick, but it was OK.

All in all, I do like the books and found them very fun and entertaining for a light read.

It was a nice story, different enough, but nothing really happened to make me feel it was great and I don't feel the need to read the next books.
The story dragged and I feel like I'd have enjoyed it more had it been about 1/3 smaller. And if the ending was some chapter or 2 before, I find I didn't need all the details of what happened after Samarand was killed and Cally made his claim. If it had stopped with Dante taking the first step of the journey back and all the rest was left for Book 2 I think it would have made me want to read it more.

I loved it.
I read this as part of the kindle bundle 14 Fantasy Books and it was by far one of the very best.
A mix of Lovecraft, Arthur C. Clarke and Steampunk, the story is engaging, the characters are fun, the romance is there just in the right ballance and isn't one of those teenage romances so popular right now.
I was also very happy that despite being the first to a trilogy, the story starts and ends in the same book, and I can be satisfied with it for some time, though I've already bought the two others.
Would definetly recommend to friends.

Zero estrelas, se fosse possível.
As descrições são extremamente repetitivas, quase 10% do livro são perdidos em um flashback enorme que ainda deixa todos os assuntos não resolvidos para os personagens, só o leitor é que tira alguma informação desses capítulos, o que nem seria muito necessário já que era óbvio desde o livro anterior que Shakur tinha algo a ver com a infância de Nina.
A indecisão e falta de fé, em si mesma e em tudo e todos, de Nina é extremamente irritante e dura até as últimas páginas. A personagem é tão carente de atenção e validação que basta alguém não estar dizendo a cada segundo que a ama e quão especial ela é pra que ela volte a duvidar que alguém se importe com ela o que sua existência valha a pena.
Fiquei muito decepcionada com a tão falada lenda do filho de Richard. Cheguei a jurar que ela sairia grávida e eles teriam que protegê-los até que o filho dos dois pudesse derrotar as bestas. Ou que a realização de que carregava o filho é que faria ela ser capaz de acabar com a maldição e os monstros, afinal ela NÃO É a criança descrita na outra profecia, já que não foi concebida com amor. Muito decepcionante essa parte ficar esquecida, uma vez que as bestas foram destruídas sem filho nenhum.
Infelizmente, do meio para o fim do livro eu já estava tão irritada com Nina que nada mais me emocionou, nada mais conseguiu tirar empatia nenhuma de mim, nem as mortes da mãe e do padastro.
Não vou comentar que Malazar reclama a paternidade tanto de Nina quanto de Richard, então na visão dele os dois seriam meio irmãos. Se paternidade funcionasse assim.
Gostaria muito de ter visto uma Nina realmente mudada e crescida 4 anos depois, com uma filha sua agarrada em sua saia, uma mãe equilibrada, tranquila e realmente resignada com sua situação atual, talvez cedendo sim aos avanços do colega de trabalho e começando a considerar que sua filha precisaria de um pai e ele seria um bom homem para ter por perto. Admitindo que nunca deixaria de amar Richard, mas que precisava seguir em frente com sua vida, pois ele gostaria que ela fosse feliz.