Goodreads Monday #12 Beasts Made of Night

Goodreads Monday is hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners. It is when we show off a book from our TBR that we’re looking forward to reading.

Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi

In the walled city of Kos, corrupt mages can magically call forth sin from a sinner in the form of sin-beasts – lethal creatures spawned from feelings of guilt.

Taj is the most talented of the aki, young sin-eaters indentured by the mages to slay the sin-beasts. But Taj’s livelihood comes at a terrible cost. When he kills a sin-beast, a tattoo of the beast appears on his skin while the guilt of committing the sin appears on his mind. Most aki are driven mad by the process, but 17-year-old Taj is cocky and desperate to provide for his family.

When Taj is called to eat a sin of a royal, he’s suddenly thrust into the center of a dark conspiracy to destroy Kos. Now Taj must fight to save the princess that he loves – and his own life.

A gritty Nigerian-influenced fantasy.

I’m deciding to take this book with me for when I go to Namibia in June and have been interested in it the moment it came out. I notice however that it doesn’t have a high GR rating and a lot of people couldn’t finish it because they describe it as slow or dense. Many have also said the world building here is excellent which will always be a bonus with me. The bit that thrills me the most is that it’s got cultural influences and sounds like a very complex novel. To me that description sounds anything but boring and right now I can’t imagine myself DNFing this because I remember A Thousand Nights- E.K. Johnston was quite slow but also very rich in its descriptions making it a perfect holiday read. Have you read this book? Is it indeed as bad as many reviewers say? Hopefully not 😛 It sounds amazing to me anyway…