But I have high hopes for Motayne, and I hope she grows as a writer for the next book in the series. For that reason, I found myself skimming the last ¼ of the book. Still, Nocturna was a pretty fun and interesting read and I’ll probably be checking out others in the series Read on for my full review. I liked Alfie as a character, but other than that, I had a really hard time caring about the characters. Was it the Latin-inspired fantasy full of culture I was expecting. I also think that “maldito,” or “damned” in Spanish, was really overused. I think “quipped” is now my least favorite dialogue tag. The dialogue got better as the book went on, but it still wasn’t great. At least 100 pages could’ve been cut from the book to make the plot flow faster. While the beginning of the book was promising, the book starts to drag pretty quickly. The dialogue sounds stilted because every character talks in chunks of exposition. My other biggest issue with the book is that it’s too “tell-y.” You know, the “show don’t tell rule.” Well, unfortunately, the first half of the book tells way too much. He and Finn, the face stealer, team up in order to break a girl out of prison to help them.

Perfect for fans of Tomi Adeyemi, Leigh Bardugo, and V. Alfie, the prince, releases a darkness in order to save his best friend and vows to fix his wrongdoing to save his kingdom from destruction. Nocturna AudioBook Summary The first in a sweeping and epic own-voices debut fantasy trilogy set in a stunning Latinx-inspired world about a face-changing thief and a risk-taking prince who must team up to defeat a powerful evil they accidentally unleashed. I found the magic system to be pretty generic: a mix of bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender and the magic from Harry Potter, only with Spanish verbs instead of Latin. Maybe not specifically this book, but all of the elements that tie it together. Nocturna has a great set up: a prince and a girl who can steal faces team together in a Latin-inspired world.īut here’s the thing: I’ve read this book before. However, Nocturna gave me a great writing idea, and Motayne even responded to me on Twitter! She’s super sweet and I think she has a lot of promise. I hate to say this, but I didn’t love Nocturna by Maya Motayne.

Nocturna motayne