Rating
Review
First off I would like to thank the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for giving me the chance to read and review this ARC. Please note that the version I read was an advanced copy, and certain events/language may be changed in the published edition. While the copy was provided for free, all opinions are honest and my own.
In Killing November, November Adley must learn to navigate a new school, but it’s unlike any other school. It’s hidden in a place no one knows of and trains its students, all elite children of secret Families, in the arts of deception, battle, and secrets. November is thrown into this world without ever having heard of it and must figure out how she fits in, fast. After all, it seems someone is trying to kill her.
This is my first book of Mather’s, though I have wanted to read How To Hang A Witch for a while. When I was accepted for this ARC, I was so intrigued by the synopsis that I started it almost right after being approved. Unfortunately, while this book was far from a bad one, I never truly connected with it.
On a structural level, this book is a pretty good one. The world itself is decently constructed, with explanations for almost everything. While you’re still left with lots of questions of how things work, you know enough quite quickly to understand what’s going on. There were a few moments of major info dump, but generally, November learned about the world around her slowly, gleaned from little hints dropped by her peers. It led to an easing into the chaotic and complicated world of the Families and Strategia, meaning there was no point where I was too confused or overwhelmed.
Additionally, the plot itself is pretty decent too. This book is dipped heavily in the idea of secrets, betrayals, and hidden plots, and it delivers on these promises pretty well. Even though you’re told not to trust anyone, the way the characters are written and sold to the main character still leads to November, and the reader, trusting and writing off the wrong people. While one of the twists was fairly easy to spot from early on, most of the other twists and turns were cleverly hidden. Lastly, all the puzzle pieces clicked together quite neatly, which is an important aspect of this book. It sells the idea of deception and reading others so much that if the book itself had been unable to accomplish that itself, it would have fallen quite short.
Like I mentioned above, the characters are also quite well written and planned, continuous even through the reveals of their various ‘faces.’ And while there are a few “tropey” characters, the book tries to spin these tropes and assumptions that come along with them on their heads, leading to an interesting ending. However, I did have a few issues in this category as well. Firstly, the romance of this book was pretty insta love. It was also just your standard YA romance, in the first book the characters start liking each other and by the end, they’re willing to do anything for the other, even at the cost of themselves. In a story like this, I felt like this made even less sense than usual. Secondly, November was a hard character to pin down, especially at first. She is shown entirely clueless at some moments, and other times extremely skilled in odd arts like knife throwing and archery. While this is all explained later and through her memories, it makes it hard to connect with her as a character at first because you feel as if you don’t really know her at all. And once you’ve missed that initial chance for connection, you don’t really get another, which led to me being distanced from the characters and therefore the consequences of certain events.
Lastly, I’m not necessarily that into where the series seems to be going. We seem to be leaving the boarding school to move into a larger, save the world/save the society plotline, and I’m just not sure how well that will fit with what we’ve seen of the characters and the world so far. However, I may still end up continuing the series, but we’ll see!
