This book was okay. The world building was amazing, and was unlike anything else out there lately. It's nice to see some diversity in fantasy, as well as for a country as underrepresented as Nigeria featured by a new author. I just don't know that the characters really worked for me, and it felt like the plot dragged a bit at times. But I will still be recommending this to readers of fantasy who are looking for something new and exciting.

I've already told the school librarian and several teachers about this glorious book.

I’m gonna keep this short since I don’t really care enough to write a rant about this book. If you want my advice, keep your hands off this debut. Beast Made of Night starts out with a compelling idea. Taj is an aki, a Sin Eater. In Kos, a city whose cultural mix and layout are influenced by ancient Arabian and Nigerian cities, people get ill because of the sins they commit. Mages have the power to extract sin from the body after which it transforms into a magical beast. It is the aki’s job to fight and consume these beasts and make it their own. The sin is gone but remains visible as a tattoo on the aki’s skin. However, the aki also has to live with another person’s sin. Although aki are very useful, they are also looked down upon mainly because they are regarded as sinful. Taj is somehow unique. He doesn’t seem to be as affected by the sins he consumes as his fellow aki, but his tattoos also stay on his skin, whereas others’ fade after some time. When Taj helps out one of his friends in fighting the king’s sin beast, he is offered to remain in the Royals’ service. But why? What are the king and his closest Mage planning?

I so wanted to like this, but I just found it boring and confusing. Some plot holes make it incoherent, and concerning the language and the characters, there was nothing exciting to be found. It all felt like jumping from one scene to the next, a bit like a movie script. There was just not enough story telling to make a good story. There are so many things that just don’t make sense at all, and I wanted to put the book down after reading two-thirds. While it felt kind of interesting at the beginning, it just went downhill from there. A pity really since the whole premise was great, but its execution is just a hodgepodge of different cultural elements and rather bland characters. Unfortunately, nothing exciting to see here.

This book opened new doors to a completely different world with diverse characters. The plot was really compelling and fast paced. I absolutely liked everything about this book and can't wait to read more titles by this author. Furthermore, the powers of the characters and of the manifestation of sin as a physical being and entity made it such a wild ride.