Review: Destroy the Day by Brigid Kemmerer

Name: Destroy the Day
Series: Defy the Night #3
Author: Brigid Kemmerer
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Format: Kindle
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Noted Tropes: Separation, Double Lives, Unlikely Allies
Steam or Spice: Steam-ish

Rating:

Synopsis: Goodreads
Left for dead, but desperate to survive . . . they have one last chance to save their kingdom.
Prince Corrick is out of options. Held captive by the vicious Oren Crane, he’s desperate to reunite with Tessa, but will need to ally with the rebel leader Lochlan, who until now wished him dead. An unlikely but deadly pair, Corrick and Lochlan must plot their next moves carefully.
An island away, Tessa Cade is heartbroken and angry. Grieving Corrick, and unsure how to find a way back to Kandala, she doesn’t know who to trust. Until Rian—the man she trusts least—makes an offer: aid in a plot to finally oust Oren Crane and see what the future holds . . .
Meanwhile in Kandala, Harristan is dethroned and on the run. He’s struggling to unite the rebels in his fractured kingdom, but he finds support—and maybe more—in unexpected places.
Can Harristan be the king his people need? Can Corrick and Tessa find their way back to each other? As outside threats loom and the fires of revolution burn from within, time is running out to save their kingdom.

Review:

Destroy the Day is the third installment in the Defy the night trilogy, and as such there are likely spoilers for the series in the review.

When I finished Destroy the Day I rated it 5 stars as I was reeling from the ending still. It has since been downgraded to a 4 star review. “But Tyler, doesn’t that mean the series got worse as it went on?” I suppose so. But to be clear, I still really enjoyed Destroy the Day, it lost a star because the majority of the book had one of my least favourite tropes: separation.

The cliffhanger from Defend the Dawn meant I jumped right into Destroy the Day and yet this book took me almost a week to get through. I say that sadly, because the first two books I read very quickly in comparison. The reason for that is Corrick and Tessa spent the majority of the book separated! And while they were separated their solo stories weren’t enough to keep me hooked anymore. Each chapter I was hoping we’d finally have them reunited and the speed of the book would pick up again…

Clearly, I felt like we waited too long for that. I was actually more excited to find out what was going on with King Harristan and Quint than I was for Corrick and Tessa’s indvidual stories. I still didn’t care much for the Rian storyline.

This is all to say, even though I didn’t gel with the entire book, I still really liked the writing, I’m just not sure it needed everything it was given (too many plots I think…). Now Destroy the Day did have me in tears at one point, which is almost enough for me to increase the rating by half a star – because if I love a character that much that the author makes me cry then I am typically hooked!

All in all – I enjoyed this series, and I would recommend it to those who want to read a YA fantasy and fall in love with the way an author creates her characters. The series does have a satisfying ending, which was a surprise because part way through I did not think that was going to be the case! But in my opinion, the series starts off as good as it’s getting with Defy the Night.

Sorry to repeat quotes, but damn this one hit harder in this one!!

“Mind your mettle, Tessa.” – Corrick

Reading With Tyler