Series Review: Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi | An Imaginative, Nigerian-Influenced Fantasy

Hey, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m doing my first review since I took my break. It’s a bit different because I’ll be reviewing a whole series instead of just one book. I’ll be doing two separate reviews (it’s a duology), but they’ll be shorter than my normal ones. My cousin recommended this series to me and I’m super glad he did!

Title: Beasts Made of Night and Crown of Thunder
Author: Tochi Onyebuchi
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count: 295 (BMON); 303 (COT)

The Beasts Made of Night series follows Taj, seventeen and the most talented of the aki. He’s been a sin-eater since he was young, fighting people’s sins and then taking them himself. Whenever he kills a sin-beast, a tattoo of it appears on his skin and the guilt of committing the sin appears in his mind. When he’s called in to eat the sin of a royal, he discovers that there’s more than meets the eye to the royalty of Kos. Someone’s plotting to destroy the city and it’s up to him to find out what’s happening before it’s too late.

This is the first book’s synopsis. I didn’t say anything for the second because of spoilers, but you can find more about it on the Goodreads page–I linked it through the COT cover.

Beasts Made of Night (#1)|★★★★ – I was really intrigued by the overall concept of this book. Fighting sins and having them appear as tattoos on one’s body was very interesting. The first thing that pulled me in was the world building. Though we don’t get a lot of exposition, learning about Kos and the Forum was fascinating. There were many details, both large and small, that added to creating this world. From the food to the different ceremonies to the Scribes who painted sins on the Wall, Kos was fully formed.

Taj was a great main character. Having to adjust to a male protagonist, I realized how many fewer male MCs there are in fantasy than females. Taj is stubborn and selfless and willing to protect the ones he loves. Being an aki, he’s used to being discriminated against, living poor in the Forum and being stared at in disgust because of his sin-spots. But he’s still a vital part of Kos, as are all the other aki. The royals depend on them to keep themselves pure and sin-free.

“We’re supposed to carry the guilt, and the more we think of our sins, what we did, what we thought, the more we are supposed to hurt. But these aren’t our sins. We didn’t do this. So these aren’t ours to think about.”

The pacing definitely felt a bit off. For about the first half, it was pretty slow, mainly getting set up for the rest of the book. Then in the second half, it picks up a lot more speed and the passage of time is unclear. I’m not sure if it’s been a few weeks or a few months.

I saw a bit of instalove between Taj and Princess Karima, which I didn’t particularly care for. It kind of seemed like one-sided as well. Taj was totally infatuated with her, while Karima seemed more interested in his sin-spots than him as a person.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the other side characters. There were a lot of them, but they all played an important role. I found Zainab especially interesting and wished we got to know more about her.

This was an entertaining and great start to the series. I really enjoyed it and was very excited to continue with the second book.

Crown of Thunder|★★★★ – COT has a much faster pace than BMON and there’s a ton more action as well. I can’t say much of what happens because of spoilers to book one, but Taj gets to explore the world outside of Kos. We see more of Onyebuchi’s worldbuilding and get introduced to some new characters as well.

Taj really grew in this book. He learns more about his powers as an aki and he battles a little bit with himself about whether he should use his abilities for good or not. And Aliya! There was a lot of mystery around her and who she became. I’m still a little confused about it, but her transformation was so cool.

One character I wish had more of a storyline was Arzu. The big thing that gets revealed near the end is an important part to her background, but it all happens so quickly; it seemed a little anticlimactic.

There are a bunch of new characters introduced in Crown of Thunder, many of them from outside Kos. Some of them aid Taj in his journey while some cause him to question who he really wants to be.

“The toughest thing in the world to do is stand by and watch someone you care about suffer.”

As I said at the beginning, this book definitely has more action than the first one. The fight scenes between the sin-beasts were done really well and I could vividly picture in my mind what was happening.

I feel like the ending was slightly rushed and the events that happened with the royals was a little too “tidy” but I still enjoyed it nevertheless. It was fascinating to learn alongside the aki about the different ways their abilities could be used. All in all, I had a really good time with this duology and would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a quick fantasy read.

Overall Rating: 4/5 dragons