 Hey guys, it's Liana and I'm here today to talk about Nocturna. I say talk, I mean rant and we all know that. So I'm guessing that my thumbnail made that very clear. I talked about in the chatty get ready with me video that came before this. I don't know if it was right before this, but whenever it came about the fact that I was listening to a book that I hate to and from work every day. And it was making my like first days at my new job awful because the commute is already longer and I was listening to a book that I hate and that book was Nocturna. You made my life hell for a week. I, oh my God, this book is such yikes. Okay, this is I guess gonna be kind of a spoilery video, but this is the kind of like boilerplate fantasy where I don't really feel like you can really have spoilers for it because it's everything that you expect it to be except done badly. So there's nothing about it where it would have ruined the reading experience. I mean, okay, in my opinion, there is no ruining this reading experience because it's shit just from the get go. But there'd be no ruining of a surprise, I feel like because it doesn't have surprises. To me, largely spoilers are just things that are a surprise. So if it's not a surprise, then how is that a spoiler if that makes sense? Does that make sense? I think it makes sense. What's a good example of that? As I mean, like if you go into Hamlet, okay, I can't use Hamlet just in case you've never read Hamlet. Oh God. Okay, well, I feel like most people who will read or watch Romeo and Juliet, you know that the two are gonna die. In fact, it's been a while, but I think it might open by telling you that in the beginning. So it's not a spoiler to know that Romeo and Juliet die. So there isn't really any spoilers about Romeo and Juliet that are possible. It's about the journey. So to me, spoilers largely are just things that are a surprise or a mystery. And if it's not a surprise or a mystery, then it's just the journey. Anyway, all that to say, nocturnia, shit. I gave this one star. Lately I've been hating a lot of YA but I've been giving it kind of two stars. Like I gave Serpent of Dove two stars. I gave one of your deception two stars. I gave Sorcerer of Thorns two stars. This was one because this was just worse, so much worse. Oh, oh my God. I had a lot of road rage, but it was at the book. Really not at other drivers because I was like verbally yelling at the book in the car. And I'm sure drivers around me thought that I was yelling at them. So sorry, other drivers, if you're watching this video, I wasn't yelling at you, I was yelling at this book because it was awful. Oh my God, it was so bad. I almost stopped pulling it up. It's heavy and shiny. We've all seen the cover now. I went into it. I think I had heard someone mention it, but it was in the context of them saying that they didn't think this was true. As I honestly, I don't pay attention to book reviews. I don't pay attention to what the community is saying. Like unless it's something that I'm really, really interested in and really hyped and like wanting to know what everyone is saying. Like if there's advanced readers' copies out there for something I'm dying for, then I might be like, what are people saying? But it's very, like whenever I talk to friends about books, they're like, oh, well people have been saying that it's really good or people have been saying that it's really shit. And I'm like, who, what people? What are you talking about? I read the blurb and I read the book. That's about it. Someone was telling me that people have been comparing it to the Shades of Magic trilogy by V.E. Schwab. And they were saying not that they agree with that, but that this is a thing they have heard. So they had to inform me of it because I had not heard this and then tell me that they disagree, that they don't think it's like that. That like there are some elements that you could say are similar, but it's not really the blatant ripoff that people are saying it is. And yes, yes it is. I'm sorry, friend, but this is such a ripoff of Shades of Magic. Okay, so basically like if you read the Shades of Magic trilogy by V.E. Schwab, so picture that series and then think to yourself, what if it was Latinx and shitty? That's nocturna. Oh, oh, it's so bad. It's so bad. The only parts of it that were even remotely good are the parts that were a blatant ripoff from Shades of Magic. Schwab's magic system isn't maybe the most like ironclad, isn't necessarily always the most perfect up by biting by its rules and making sense, but it's still like decently constructed and you kind of, you feel like it has some stakes and some rules and you kind of jive with it in my experience. I think it was done pretty well. It doesn't, there's a lot of things that kind of like, you don't ask too many questions because then it might fall apart, but it works. Like I think she did a good job. I like it, but all that just like, it's not perfect even with Schwab, but like overall Schwab's told a story that's interesting, characters that are cool, a magic system that works. So the overall package, while there are imperfections, it works and it's enjoyable and it's immersive and it's good. Nocturna is none of those things. Oh, it was so bad. Even like, it was honestly nothing about it was Latinx inspired except for the fact that the magic words instead of like, again, if you read Schwab, Kel has to use magic words when he's using the magic and he can open, he's crossing between sort of parallel universes and he's passing through sort of doorways that he makes with magic and he has to use magic words like as Travars. Well, the main character Nocturna, his particular kind of magic allows him to open doorways, not to other universes, not to parallel universes, just other places, sort of like teleporting, but like through magic doorways with magic words. But yeah, so the magic words that he and other people use in this world are in Spanish, because they're not like inspired by they're like literally Spanish words. And then like the names of the people and the names of the places are Spanish-ish and it's kind of in the way that Serpent and Dove was French-ish, where they're randomly throwing in Spanish words, like while they're talking in English. And someone who commented on my Serpent and Dove video expressed like articulated something that I have felt for a long time, but I don't know exactly, like I don't think I've ever actually like put it into words and she put it into words and I was like, yes, that's exactly how I feel about it. So credit to you, commenter. When you're watching a movie or reading something where everyone's talking in English, but they are in Germany or they are in Russia or they are in wherever they are, the assumption is not that they're speaking in English because that would be so weird, it's just that they're speaking in English so that you understand it, but they are French or they are German. So if you pepper in suddenly German words that are not like the food they're eating or something like that or someone's, if it's food or people's names or place names, then those are just the names for these places and things like you wouldn't really translate that, like if that makes sense. So if you're in either fake or real Germany and everyone's speaking in English, but they're referring to, oh God, I don't know German food words. Wienerschnitzel. You don't have to translate Wienerschnitzel because that's just what the food is called. So stuff like that is fine, but if they're suddenly, if they're all speaking in English all the time, even though it's Germany, but all of a sudden a character says Scheiße, why would they? Because that's not English, that's German. So are you saying they're not speaking German? Are they all actually just speaking English? Like it doesn't, that's when it falls apart. Either they are all speaking English because this is like for our understanding, but they are speaking German. In which case, why are there, is that the moment where they're now speaking English and that's why it sounds like German to us now? You know what I mean? It doesn't make sense anymore. So in Nocturna, they're all speaking in English, but they do say Bentejo and I mean, it flew by so fast, but there was like a bunch of Spanish words like that, where it was just like in conversation, like you've outstayed your welcome muchacho, like stuff like that where it's like Spanglish. It was, yeah, it was just Spanglish. And so I kept thinking, because Spanglish makes sense why Spanglish exists because everyone is like from a Latin country, from like a Spanish speaking country and is in a place that is not. And so they are, it's like a pigeon that's formed because you're speaking English because you're in a English speaking place now, but you're bringing in some of the words that are from your native country or from where you came from or from what you speak at home. And that makes sense, but this isn't that. These aren't people that came from there. They're in there right now. So why are there randomly Spanish words mixed in to their English? They should just be speaking Spanish or speaking in English. Like, you know what I mean? So the fact that all their names like Prince Alferre and Luca and well, the girl was Finn, but yeah, a lot of the place names and the people names sounded kind of Spanish, which is fine. It's not fine anymore when, because then also that too, I was like, okay, so if we're gonna say that the magic language of the world is Spanish, okay? Like, I'll bite. So you're saying that in order to achieve magic, you must use magic words and magic words are Spanish. Great, all right, fine, I'm with you. But then why are there also randomly Spanish words in their speech? Are those magic words now? Is saying muchacho? Is saying Bentejo, is that magic now? Cause it's in Spanish? Why is it here? I have no objection whatsoever to all that next inspired world. I had the same issue with Serpent and Dub, which was a French inspired world. It doesn't make sense, which times you're like, you can't just throw it in without a reason. That's the problem. You have to have a reason. So that annoyed me throughout. And there was just like, again, that like sort of heavy handed random, like when they're trying to think of a color, cause Prince Alfie or Alfie can see people's magic. That's part of his magic is to be able to see the color of other people's magic. And he observes that Finn's magic is red. It's a deep red, like sangria. I mean, honestly, wine undiluted is redder. So if we were trying to enforce how dark and deep the red is, actual normal red wine would be redder than sangria. But he said sangria because then that's left next. And it was annoying. Oh really? Is it like sangria? So again, more of that just like generally like, the world does not make sense. But so it is like shades of magic because again, you use magic words to do magic things and the Prince unleashes kind of this darkness that has this, it's kind of sentient, but kind of not. I just kind of pictured it as venom, which made it a little more enjoyable. And his reasons for unleashing it, I, this is like fairly early on in the book, it's like probably a third of the way through. Cause like that's what unleashes the big bad. And that's what the rest of the book is about is them fighting the big bad. This isn't a situation where he was naively tricked. This isn't a situation where something was out of his control and therefore here's the big bad. It is 100% Alfie's fault that everything that happens happens. And he spends the rest of the book feeling guilty and like suddenly like having worrying about what might be the greater good. And he actually has the nerve to get annoyed with the girl for not making selfless decisions. And then being like, well, what else should I expect from her? She's just a thief. Why would I expect her to be selfless? You, sir, unleash this hell upon everyone. So shut the fuck up. Like this is 100% your fault, 100%. I don't know why the author would choose to do that because you can read it any how, any kind of way you want. So it's not like, well, Alfie had to make decisions for this to happen. No, you could have written it where the magic tricked him. You could have written it where he was led to believe that things would be fine. And then he was fooled. And like his, it's his fault because he was naive, not his fault because he knowingly unleashed this and decided, yeah, that's worth it. You know, like I have, I was like, he should die. Like it's his completely his fault. And it's not his fault in terms of like, and this isn't like a Pippin moment in Lord of the Rings where yes, it is Pippin's fault in the minds of Moria that he's knocked over the like armor that goes clinging clattering and wakes up all of the orcs that now come and attack them. Like, I don't, Pippin doesn't deserve to die for that. He bumped into a thing and it fell and it was like, oh fuck. The equivalent in Nocturna is Prince Alfair looking over to that armor and that well and being like, what if I just pushed it over? Let's do that. And then being like, oh no, what have I brought upon these people? It's your fucking fault. Why? Why is it written like this? Oh, no sympathy, none. And then the girl character who is Delilah Bard, like 100%, she's Delilah Bard. She doesn't actually make sense though. Like I apologize to Delilah Bard for making that comparison because Delilah is a thief with dubious morals with selfish motivations that she does a lot of things that you're like, oh, that's quite ruthless. It's quite cutthroat, but she's a thief. So she should do stuff like that. If you're gonna write a character, that's a thief, that's a murderer, that's an assassin. Oh my God, I don't even get me started on that. There, I get so annoyed with especially YA because that's really only YA that I see that where you wanna have like able to have the cool thing of the character is a thief, is an assassin, is something cool like that. But you can't, you don't have the balls or you don't think your readers are gonna like them if you actually make them do the things that they would be needing to do to have that reputation. And this is why for the one millionth and one month, for the one millionth and first time, I'm gonna bring up Leigh Bardugo. You're welcome. Because Leigh Bardugo in the Sixth of Crows duology, she wrote Kaz Brecker to have horrible and ruthless and terrifying reputation that he earned. And the reader still loved it, but Kaz Brecker wouldn't work. Kaz Brecker would not be a fan favorite. Kaz Brecker wouldn't make sense. He wouldn't be worthy of the readers and the other characters' respect if he was just like secretly good all the time and it was all just like, you know, he's supposedly scary, but he's never actually done a bad thing in his life. He does bad things all the time and he's very practical about it. And he's even, he, it's in the text where he says, if everyone believes you're a monster, you needn't do every monstrous thing. Because he's smart, he knows that like to do a little bit of evil now and again when it's gonna be the most memorable, when it's gonna have the greatest effect means that he can get away with not always doing the horrible, ruthless thing. But he is willing to do the horrible, ruthless thing if it's called for, if it's needed, if there's no other way he'll do it. He doesn't always prefer to do it and it's also effort. I mean, he rips some guy's eye out and then kills him and he's our main character, but he's our hero, so to speak. But the fact that he has this evil, dark reputation is earned and it's seen by the reader. It's like on screen. It's not like back in the day, he used to do horrible things and he has a horrible reputation, but all you ever see him do is like nice heroic things. Like, no. This is one of my biggest problems. And why I, well, there's many reasons but why I couldn't stand and had no use for the tone of glass series by Sarah Chimas because that's what she did with Selena that she was, you know, Adderland's greatest assassin except she'd never did any assassinating. I was like, you can't have it like this. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't say that she is the most fearsome, the most best, the most terrifying and cutthroat assassin. But on screen, she's always evading killing and avoiding hurting people and finding a reason not to kill people. I'm like, you can't have it both ways. You just can't. So don't write a character that's an assassin if you're not willing to make them be an assassin. Don't do it. So in Nocturna, all of this to say, Delilah Bard's our Finn, she's a thief. And when you first meet her, she's a thief. And throughout the book, they keep talking about how she's a thief and the prince keeps saying, well, what more did he expect from a thief? Like so much lip service is paid to this. But in terms of what she does, like one of the first things that you see her do is is idiotic and also not in line with the selfish me first attitude that she supposedly got that she's supposed to have. I mean, in the shades of magic trilogy, Delilah Bard does things where you're like, yikes, that was ruthless and selfish. And then when you write it like that, you do, I guess, risk the fact that your readership is not going to support your character anymore because they're like, that's too far. She's not a good person, but she didn't claim to be. And if you're gonna write a character like that, and they need to be that way, because at least if you've written a thief, then make them be a thief. And you let them lose the reader's love for being what they claim to be, not lose the reader's respect for the fact that you've claimed they are one thing and they aren't actually that thing. So in Nocturna, when she first meets Prince Alfair, they're both at this high stakes card game where the prize to be won are these books of magic that they both want. They've never, they don't know they're both there. And everyone at this game is wearing masks to hide their identity. And her magic, just to her own actual magic is that she can change her face. So she's already changed her face into someone else and then worn this mask to go and go to this card game to get these books. And Alfie's also there in a mask and no one knows he's a prince. And so she cheats and she gets the books after the card. Like she wins, wins, but cheats and gets the books. And so when they're leaving, they have this altercation outside of the card game because he really wants the books and he's gonna fight her for them. And she agrees to this for some reason instead of just like leaving could be, she got what she came for. So they fight, you know, he's always really impressed with her native abilities with magic, but you know, she's untrained and undisciplined. And it's like another one of those like, wow, she's so powerful because wow. But so they've been fighting with the masks on and she finally, she cheats again and she, she bests him and now he's lying unconscious and she gets the books. But she's looking at him lying there and she's wondering who he is under the mask. It might be good to know that, but instead of doing the smart thing, doing the practical thing, doing the thing that you'd expect a thief to do, instead of taking his mask off to see who he is underneath, she, her internal monologue is that, but she, you know, more than anyone knows the value of, you know, protecting your identity. And she's the one that always hides her face and wears the masks of other people. So who is she to take that away from him? Who is she to take away his privacy and like to like snoop into his identity? So she leaves his mask on him and leaves. And I was just like from, that was pretty early on in the book and from I was already annoyed. And I was like, I'm not sure I'm gonna like this a lot. And then when that happened, I was just like, what the fuck? That doesn't make any kind of sense, like none. If you really, and I mean, the whole reason that happens at all is just so that later when they meet again, she can be like, oh, shit, you're the prince. You could have had this scene happen where she's about to pull his mask off and then like suddenly like some of, some guard, some, some soldier or somebody comes over and like interrupts them. And she's like, oh, shit. Like runs away before she has a chance to take his mask off. You could do that and then still preserve the mystery of his identity, but to have her actively choose to not see who he is, when it helps her in no way, she has no loyalty to him. She doesn't know who he, I mean, she does not know who he is. So like, why? Like, why would she put his desire for privacy over her own needs to probably know who this person is who attacked her who seemed really good at magic? That's a terrible, terrible decision. And Kaz would never do that. And the line of art would never do that. Yeah. So between her being an idiot and not truly being deserving of this thieving reputation that she supposedly has, that she's like the best thief. And then Alfie is the one that like intentionally unleashes darkness because like his friend is in danger and this dark evil magic that's very obviously dark and evil. Like it's not pretending to be something nice. It's like, well, okay, well then we'll save your friend if you unleash us. Like if you let us set this magic free, then we'll protect, when then your friend will be fine. That's the deal. And instead of being like, unleash the apocalypse or let my one friend die and be sad, apocalypse. And then after he does it, he's like, oh no, what have I done? I have no sympathy for that. The magic was like pretty straightforward. The magic wasn't like, oh, make all your dreams come true. If you set us free, we'll be your friend. We'll help you. The magic is like, we're evil. We're gonna fuck you up, but your friend will be alive. So set us free. And like the magic laughs at him. And it's like, we can't believe how easy it was to get you to set us free. Like all it took was your friend being in danger. And he's like sad. And I guess you're supposed to find that sympathetic his loyalty to his friend. But you're like, you're supposed to be like next in line to the throne. Like so much yikes. So much yikes. And then later when you find out why his friend was even in danger in the first place, like why that situation was the case, why his friend needed saving. Cause you do find that out. It's dumb and it doesn't make any sense. I'm so stupid. And then the villain who's not like the human side to the villain is someone from Finth past who then the magic inhabits kind of like venom. I know he's, there's something that could be menacing about that because he's like somebody that like controlled her from childhood with his magic and made her, he like had control over every part of her life and never wanted her to form attachments with anyone else. He's really possessive of her. So yeah, that's scary and that's villainous. But the way it's executed here is so cartoonish and it doesn't actually make sense. And that's the biggest problem with it is that there are people like that in this world that'll do that that are controlling and manipulative and selfish and they're gonna smother you and try to hold you close and try to make sure you don't actually connect with other people. Like that's a real thing. But the way that the narrative kind of explains his motivations for this and the way he's done to achieve it and the way that he reacts to her, it doesn't actually ring true to how people like that would be if that was really their MO or their motivation or it just doesn't, I'm just like, this just doesn't work like that. Like the way he's acting like is how, I guess someone would imagine that, you know what I mean? It doesn't sound like the actual motivations of a person who would be behaving this way. It just is there to be a villain. The things he says, when you write, you have to place yourself in the shoes of every character that you're writing so that you can write believable dialogue and motivations for them. But this is all told, like you've only ever been in the shoes of the main heroes and you've written the villains dialogue based on what you think your character will find the most scary, not based on what that character would be the most likely to say. And that's why it doesn't work because that's not how things work. You have to think in the back of your mind what situations you can construct and what of the things he might say would be the most scary to your audience or to your main character, your hero. So you still have to come from the villain's perspective and think what is he trying to do here? What's he trying to achieve and what is he likely to say? What would he feel the need to say? And there's not gonna be just one answer to that. There's gonna be a few and from those, which is the one that's most likely to be unsettling to or misleading to or upsetting to the person hearing it. And this isn't written that way. It's just written as my hero. They're gonna be the most upset to hear this right now. So I'm just gonna have my villain say that. Even if it doesn't really make sense for them to say it or feel it or doesn't really make them seem like a fully fleshed out character. So it's just, it's not villainous anymore because I can't really believe in this villain being real because it wouldn't talk like that. He wouldn't say that. He wouldn't do that. Oh God, it was such a mess. I hated it so much. And also it was just badly written. Like the prose was bad. There were several instances where I wasn't, I mean, I was listening to it so I couldn't stop to like highlight it or look it up because I was driving. But there were several instances where I thought to myself, I'm not 100% sure that sentence was straight up wrong. At best it was clumsy and it might have been wrong. It was one that I like, I said to myself because I was gonna try to remember it for when I was doing this because I was barely into it and I was like, this will be around. It's gonna be around. But there's a, there's a moment where she says, it's something to do with something falling apart. And she says piece by piece that something was falling away. But the way that it was, it was constructed, like you can't use the phrase piece by piece the way it was used there. Like it didn't make sense. It didn't, that's not how that phrase is used. It's really bothering me. I'm gonna see if I can Google that quote. It wasn't a very good quotable quote, but you never know. I might be on Goodreads and then I can read to you. Okay, well, there's like very few quotes highlighted from this book like at all for people like in general. So obviously no one has highlighted it because it was bad. But anyway, it was just badly written. So yeah, I guess a lot of, if a story is weak with weak characters and weak role-building and a weak magic system, but it's written like gorgeously, like the prose is just so poetic. This book was like completely flat and basic prose. And then once in a while, it was clearly author had come up with what she thought was kind of a poetic way of expressing something. And she'd shove it in where once again, I didn't fit. It wasn't like all these characters were constantly talking in elaborate metaphors, but they'd be talking in the most basic, modern sounding dialogue with the occasional like spanglish thrown in. And out of nowhere, they would throw in some like elaborate metaphor for something that was like so glaringly like place there because the author was like, oh, I could describe it like this. Is that not like filled with imagery? And like it's not, it's really not. It's just elaborate and not good. And out of place. And even if it wasn't in place, it wasn't that good a metaphor. And it was clearly there because the author was like, I'm gonna, that's a good one, but that went in. And when I'm thinking about that and so does the story, you have a problem. Okay, well, I just flipped to a random page and I found an example of like a sentence where I was like, I don't think you can say it like that. He could sense the currents of air, individual threads of winds that moved in their own right. He could smell the fresh coat of paint swathed on a hacienda miles away deep in the city. I don't think paint can be swathed on a hacienda. Like something can be swathed in and it's usually cloth. You know what I'm saying? Like a sentence like that where I was just like, annoyed was one because it's a hacienda. And I was like, oh, there's another random Spanish word and the use of swathed. I was like, I don't, I don't think so. Don't think that's how that word works. Anyway, yeah, that book was shit. It was, it was truly, truly terrible and so deeply frustrating. And the character's decisions, oh, there were so many times when they did dumb stuff. Like the major ones were the like mask thing and unleashing of the dark magic, but throughout all their decisions were dumb and bad. Like after they've unleashed terrible magic, they're worried about getting in trouble more than they are worried about warning all of humanity that they've unleashed the apocalypse. One of them wants to go and tell a person that like probably knows more about the situation than they do and might be able to help them. But they're like, no, we can't tell her, don't tell her, we're gonna fix this on our own. Like you've unleashed the fucking apocalypse. The time for that is over and we need to like actually solve this. But no, there's like, oh my God. Okay, thought I was done ranting, but there's like a heist plot because they have to go get somebody else so they can do the thing so that they can fix the thing. And it's just like really convoluted. But he's the prince and they're breaking into the prison of like his own kingdom. And he has to like disguise his identity to break in and like break out this prisoner that they think that can help them with this like apocalypse they have unleashed. And they're like so worried about getting caught. He's the fucking prince. He could just walk over and be like, I'm the prince. Step aside, I'm coming in here. You know what I mean? Like it just doesn't ring true. Like why is the prince having to do that? It doesn't make any sense. How is there a heist when he is like part of the ruling family? You could still have it because I mean there's still, if he's trying to avoid his family or anyone finding out what he's up to, there might be some trickery involved with that. But having a heist to break into your own prison just doesn't make sense. It doesn't. You can't write it like that. Again, if it was finding a way to get in and out without your family finding out or like keeping the guards quiet about it or something like that. Or if it was somebody else's prison and not his own families. I know there's a heist to break into his own prison. So I don't really know exactly what the structure here is for the nonarchy which hasn't really gotten into it all of course because it's like this really flat shallow YA. So there's really no sense for like how the governing body operates, what the rights of the people are, how decisions are made. It's just like he's the prince and the good of the people and whatever. That book was awful. Don't read it. And if you do, well you can't say I didn't warn you. Let me know in the comments down below if you've read it, what you thought of it. If you didn't read it and now want to. Let me know all the things. I post videos on Saturdays, sometimes Wednesdays so like and subscribe and I'll see you when I see you. Bye.