This review is for those who have read or are familiar with the previous five books in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series, or don't mind knowing spoilers for them.
SPOILER ALERT
Sophie Foster is struggling. Grieving. Scrambling. But she knows one thing: she will not be defeated.
The Neverseen have had their victories—but the battle is far from over. It’s time to change tactics. Make sacrifices. Reexamine everything. Maybe even time for Sophie to trust her enemies.
All paths lead to Nightfall—an ominous door to an even more ominous place—and Sophie and her friends strike a dangerous bargain to get there. But nothing can prepare them for what they discover. The problems they’re facing stretch deep into their history. And with time running out, and mistakes catching up with them, Sophie and her allies must join forces in ways they never have before.
After the game-changing ending of Lodestar I was ready for this series to take a new, more progressive turn. After all, a main character just died on-screen, an inter-species summit was just blown up, and Sophie's human family has just been kidnapped. If ever there was a time for serious repercussions to come in, this would be it. And yet...
First things first: the all-important romance drama. Well, I think we've finally officially chopped an angle off of the love-square now. Though he was one of my first picks for official pairing, I think I'm happier with Dex being just a good friend, especially after the manipulation he tried to pull in this book.
In making a handy gadget for Sophie, he puts it in an 'inconspicuous' arm-band, a crush cuff that just so happens to say Sophie + Dex in huge letters. And even with Sophie's obvious discomfort over wearing it, he acts completely oblivious the whole time, forcing her to come out and say she's just not interested in him like that. Despite suggestions of other Dex pairings in the series, his incel-like behavior in this scene seriously scared me into thinking he wasn't going to take Sophie's no gracefully. Thankfully that doesn't happen, but the whole conversation still made me uncomfortable, having one of my fave characters acting like that and being semi-rewarded for it. Still, I'm looking forward to Sophie having a slightly less-complicated love life, and hopefully seeing Dex move on to more reciprocative pastures.
Another highlight in this book was the introduction of a new kickass character, the ogre princess, Ro. Ro is pure snark and sarcasm and frivolity and threatening and fun and I loved every second of it. Looking back, I definitely see her as an audience stand-in, relaying to the characters a lot of the comments (especially revolving around 'shipping' cues) that we've been making online. So in that sense she's a bit Deadpool-esque, but since no one seems to take her seriously most of the time it's not too game-changing that it doesn't work.
Really, I'm interested in learning more about her, and ogres in general in the future. Very little was divulged in her introduction other than her general appearance and some of her training. But how long do ogres live? How old is she? She talks and acts a lot like Keefe, but is her immaturity due to relative age, actual age, or just rebelliousness from being a kickass princess? Since lessons revolving around ogres are planned in the next school year, I'm eager to see more world-building on that front soon.
Hopefully that exposition will be a bit better integrated than what we got of Physic's backstory. Very early on in the book, we have a scene where Sophie is about to go explain things to her human sister, but first she's got to meet her temporary guardians, Quinlin and Livvy. We've met Quinlin before, very quickly in the first book, but Sophie is surprised to find that Livvy is the secret identity of the Black Swan's healer, Physic. So is everyone else, actually, which launches a multi-page rundown of Livvy's (and, to some extent, Quinlin's) backstory, opinions, current situation, etc. All the while Sophie's sister is sitting in the next room, probably scared to death from being kidnapped. Yeah, not the most organic or logical exposition dump there.
But I suppose I can look past it for getting to say, “I told ya so,” for reading through the last book's foreshadowing. If you remember last time, I made a big stink about how a majority of the issues facing the elves' society weren't impacting Sophie in the present, but were more fallout from the previous generation's actions, e.g. Sophie knows how pyrokinetics were treated led to Fintan and Brant turning to evil, but she has yet to witness their current treatment. Well, my prediction came through! Almost.
Yes, there is a new pyrokinetic on the team (as I assumed there would be based on the clever foreshadowing). Yes, we see some unfair treatment of them. But nothing is said of it. I mean, they complain about not being utilized in the mission, but it's in the middle of brainstorming during a battle so it goes by quickly and nothing is said afterwards. I'm hoping/trusting that more will be addressed concerning their feelings and whatnot further down the line, but honestly I'm starting to waver.
I'm just not sure these books will get as down and dirty into the political revolution as I want them to. I get that it's hard keeping the series in the middle-grade range and still focus on human- (living-being?) rights, racism, prejudice, romance, espionage, international politics, freedoms vs safety, and more, but then maybe don't try? Maybe it's time to age-up the books? Or maybe I'm just getting too impatient, but after six books, can you really blame me?
Case in point, the huge, jaw-dropping character death bombshell that rocked the end of the last book got walked back within the first few chapters of this one. Okay, no, he still died. But did you know he actually had a secret twin, and they did the whole Prestige thing where they shared one life split between the both of them? No? Well you're not alone, cause I never saw that coming either. But here we are.
Yeah, you could argue that one person having that many secret identities could have clued you in, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the death was walked back solely for the purposes of keeping the middle-grade rating. They do tie the “secret twins” scandal into the prejudice against unnatural genetics (multiple births), which does work for the most part... But when the characters continually refuse to call out the government on their prejudices or unjust treatment, nor do they ever request change, I'm finding it harder to sympathize with these supposed rebels.
But I think I've ranted on this enough. For now.
Overall, Nightfall was more of the same for the series. What the other books do well (strong, complex characters, fantastic world-building, intriguing social/political issues) it continues, but the same goes for the faults. I will admit that there have been some positive societal changes caused by Sophie and the Black Swan, but I don't think there have been as many as the number of books we've read getting here. So, if you've kept up with the series this far, this is definitely a good continuation of the stories and characters you already love. I'm just still hoping for a little more progress on the revolution than what we've gotten so far.
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