Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow

Between 4 and 4.5/5. This was such a breath of fresh air! Nevermoor had a lot of heart, colour, and just all around good storytelling. The fact that it is a middle-grade offering also makes this a great choice for a palate-cleanser: just formulaic enough to be comforting, but also imaginative enough to keep things interesting as you go along, guessing what's going to happen next.

As a protagonist, Morrigan is a pretty solid one. She's got a boatload of insecurities that possibly middle-grade audiences may find relatable, but it's also never over-dramatic or annoying enough to annoy me either (and I am a few decades away from being at the age for middle-grade). Her patron Jupiter North, however, is my favourite character. He feels a bit like a cross between Willy Wonka and Dumbledore - alternately goofy and wise, comedic and menacing. They're joined by a very colourful cast of characters that have distinct personalities: Fenestra the Magnificat, Hawthorne the dragon rider, Jack the eyepatch boy, Dame Chandra, Kedgeree, Frank the dwarf vampire, and so on.

Nevermoor felt a bit like Enid Blyton meets Harry Potter meets Umbrella Academy, while the titular Trials remind me of the Triwizard Tournament from HP Goblet of Fire. There's something very magical but yet down to earth about Nevermoor, almost a bit steampunk but without the machines. There's also something a little gothic about everything here too, from a celebration called the Black Parade to Morrigan Crow herself always being described as being deathly pale with black hair, black beady eyes, and always wearing black.

Despite all this and the tribulations of the Trials that Morrigan goes through, there's an element of child-like optimism throughout the whole story that isn't over-done. We don't get saccharine-sweet morals of the story, or having the world be so black and white that it doesn't feel real adults. Characters, whether they are “good” or “bad”, are always more than what they seem. First impressions can sometimes be an accurate reflection of the person, but often they turn out to be completely different from how Morrigan had first thought of them.

The storytelling here should also be commended. I picked this book up after a slew of books targeted towards adults but none of them had as solid a storytelling as this one. The structure, the pacing, the build-up of tension, the character introduction, the plot and character development, the revelation of twists, everything was just so so solid and well done. I was so pleasantly surprised and it was a breath of fresh air for me.

I also want to give a huge shoutout to the audiobook production. The narrator, Gemma Whelan, was such a delight to listen to and she really pumped in so much life to the story. She also gave each character such a distinct voice, accent, or tone that they really jumped off the pages. The audiobook also had short snippets of instrumental music in between chapters and I found that it somehow enhanced my experience getting into the story quite a bit.

I would certainly be continuing on the rest of the series for whenever I feel like I need a solid and reliable palate cleanser in between heavier or denser reads.