Author Gush: Brent Weeks And The Night Angel Trilogy

You know, dear reader, I have a confession to make: I fought reading this series tooth and nail. I don’t know if this came from some misguided attempt to buck the will of the internet or because some people I know were badgering me to pick it up to the point of annoyance. Regardless, seeing the trilogy available in one massive tome was too good a deal to pass up and, to finally silence those hounding me to give it a go, I gave it a go.

There was blurb on the back that said “Brent Weeks is so good it’s ticking me off.” I snorted right in the middle of the store.

“A clever little bit of marketing,” I thought. “Maybe it’ll be good,” I mused.

Little did I know how accurate that quote would prove to be. I was actively upset while reading these books, dear reader. Not because the books were poorly written, or because there was upsetting subject material, but because I wanted to sleep and there were still things I needed to know. RIGHT. NOW.

I feel like the experience of reading until the sun shines in through your window and the birds start chirping to let you know you done messed up and should have gone to bed hours and hours ago is not an uncommon experience among the readerly (and it wouldn’t be the first time I’d made that particular life choice) but this was different. I needed to burn through the next page, the next paragraph, the next sentence. I told myself “one more” so many times that even though my subconscious knew I was lying to it it didn’t care. Getting more story had become a drug, and I was riding that high for all I was worth. The mix between casual brutality and nobility of the main characters combined with no small amount of hyper-violence and good old fashioned humor come together to make something…irresistible.

You’ll note that I’ve given an entirely spoiler free endorsement here, as I don’t want to ruin anything for you and I honestly don’t trust myself to not gush over one twist or another. That’s because I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone who hasn’t picked up this series yet.

And if you haven’t just…do it. Pick it up. Give it a try! C’mon all the cool kids are doing it.

Is this the literary equivalent of a gateway drug? Shhhhhh….you talk too much. Just let it happen.