Here’s the first thing you need to understand: Lifel1k3 is the first of Jay Kristoff’s books that I have read. I still don’t know if that was a good idea, or a terrible idea. If you’re read Lifel1k3 or intend to do so, you can be the judge.The point is, I had no experience with his writing style, though from the sage advice and dire warnings ladled out generously by my bookish friends, I clearly should have take this book more seriously from the start.
More fool me.
Jay Kristoff is a brilliant writer, with an incredible imagination and a knack for spiraling plots that are just surprising enough without being overdone. He is, if you’ll pardon my language, a magnificent asshole.
Sweet f***. I haven’t been sucked into a story like that in a long time. I started it on Saturday night, read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, and finished it on 
Sunday. The hell with research. The hell with errands and chores. I had to know what happened. The amazing thing with Mister Kristoff’s writing is that I genuinely did not know what was going to happen, at any goddamn point in the book. His writing style is completely addictive and I have absolutely no idea how his mind works to produce books like this.
On the other hand, the shattered, jagged-edged remnants of my heart smoking faintly at the bottom of the scarred and shivering well of what used to be a functioning soul may never recover.
The cast of characters that Kristoff has created for this new series (second book is out in 2019, I think?) is brilliant. Every character trait, everything they do, they way they speak and the actions they take contribute to the overall denouement of the story and the whole book reads like a Swiss timepiece maker’s chef d’oeuvre. It is honestly one of the best planned books I have read in a long, long time. And let me tell you, I read a lot. A lot. Something I also didn’t expect with the characters, that honestly doesn’t happen to me very often, was how emotionally involved I got with each of them. How sad some of their stories were, how angry some of their actions made me, and how 
truly astonished I was by the end of this novel. It is brilliant, and awful, and fantastic, and terrible, and I love it and loathe it.
So what I’m saying is, you should read the book. As soon as possible. Or listen to the audiobook, which apparently is now out (though I haven’t been able to find it on Audible Australia). Whatever you have to do.
Just. Read. The. Book.
You will regret it.
Five star read, people.
Also, shoutout to Roz over at SeventyEight.Sundays who got me a copy of the book from the launch (with bookish merch!) when I was unable to go myself. Also, thanks to Mister Kristoff for the advice: useful as always…..
Photo Credits: Taken by me, of my copy of the book. The bookmarks came with the launch: the tools I already had, from building bookshelves, obviously. I thought they suited the picture….
Categories: Science Fiction
Printed Pages and Coffee 
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