5 Star Book Review: Beyond the Shadows (The Night Angel Trilogy, #3)

Author: Brent Weeks

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Edition: Mass Market Paperback

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Related Reviews: Way of Shadows, Shadow's Edge

Rating: 5 Stars

So, there won't be any spoilers for this book in this review, even though it is the final book in a series.  I'd love to do a spoiler review if people are interested, though, so let me know in the comments if that appeals to you.

First of all, this book has given me massive book hangover.  Thank goodness I'm reading a contemporary to follow up on this or I wouldn't get any reading done.  The same feeling I had after watching the LOTR movies for the first time (I binge watched them and didn't know what I was getting into when I started) has attached itself to me now.  To describe that feeling... well, I feel a little lost.  I dedicated so much time to this series, to this world, to these characters, that now, knowing that I've said goodbye (though perhaps not forever... Brent Weeks has said he will probably write another series in this world, thank God!) has left a huge hole in my heart.

Because of this hole in my heart I'm having a hard time actually reviewing this book.  Yes, it was fantastic! but in a completely different way than book two was.  It's got action, but not so much, and I wasn't nearly as worried about where characters would end up or who would die because it wasn't such a roller coaster in that regard.  I don't want to say that people were "safe" or "in danger" life-wise, but for the most part there was never, at any point of this novel (until the very end, really), the threat of random deaths.  

Halfway through the novel though I did have moment (or two, or three) of just utter CRAZY where I threw little tantrums and actually threw the book away from me.  Like, you can sorta see me document it on twitter, but I had to get up and walk away from the novel or risk hurting my feelz too much.  Besides this feeling of UTTER BETRAYAL (I'm kidding, kinda, they were great twists) it wasn't a crazy novel and everything was very linear.

I realize now, as I'm writing the review, that I could go on forever about this book, so let me finish with one last thought: this book felt very religious to me.  I mean, I'm a practicing Catholic, and I've studied my religion pretty intensely for four years, so at this point I'm sorta trained to pick out religious themes in books, and this one was practically screaming with them.  And, honestly, I really enjoyed it.  I'd noticed it plenty times in the first two, but especially with this ending, it was just very religious feeling.  This is a personal theme, but I really enjoyed it and it added something extra to my own reading of the novel.

In a nutshell: read these damn books already!