Evenfall (Volume #1): I flat-out loved the world building and the characters development

Evenfall: Volume 1: Director's Cut by Santino Hassell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Santino Hassel is my weakness. No. Scratch that. Santino’s writing style is my weakness and his collaboration with Ais was splendid.

As usual, I started this without reading the blurb, I was almost blind. I only knew the little things that my beautiful friend Vir told me. I didn’t know what the hell was going on; I just was sucked into the story thanks to Santi’s beautiful prose.

I already have my fair share of dystopian stories by now so I’m quite taken aback by how perfectly this story worked for me. I flat out loved the world building and the characters development. This book is like crack, I couldn’t put it down. I’m writing this and all I can think of is in the next book and how anxious I am to start reading it, so I’ll be quick.

Short story long: this story takes place in a world that has been destroyed by a World War III and after this event; the world hasn’t been able to completely recover. There are a lot of crimes and terrorist attacks, mostly done by one organization called Janus. There’s this other organization, that is called "The Agency” and they exist to stop Janus. The Agency is a fuck up place that has a unique weapon: Agent Hsin Liu Vega or also known as “Sin” or “The Monster”. He’s an incredibly hot and well-trained assassin with spectacular green eyes. Sin has this new partner, Boyd Beaulieu, he’s not a well-trained assassin but he’s a pretty good agent and he’s also a hottie and broody guy with long blond hair. *drooling*.

God, this book is intense and bloody. Sometimes, I had to stop because the images were so real in my head, the way they were written was so vivid that most often than not I closed my eyes as if I were watching a movie and I waited that the moment was going to be over when I opened my eyes but NO. Silly me, I constantly forgot that I was actually reading a book and not watching a movie… So imagine how well-written this book is.

Characters.- There were some side characters pretty fantastic, like Carhart, Ryan, and Luke, but that's it. Because the rest were... OMG, I just wanted them all dead. I know the world would be a better place without them. They were so mean and psycho, seriously dude. That’s why I said the Agency is a fucked up place because they hire psycho and uncontrolled people that I still don’t understand how that place is even still functioning… Boyd’s mom is a bitch. I had to say it. Otherwise, I was going to explode. And Harry… dear, you got what you deserved and I’m so happy.

Sin and Boyd.- Ok, I don’t even know what to say about them. Saying that Boyd and Sin are messed up is an understatement. They had their fair share of horror to last a lifetime and the saying ‘old habits die hard’ is very appropriate to them. I’m not saying they don’t change or whatsoever but they try and it makes their character and relationship development really enjoyable and realistic. They are good to each other and you can tell there are significant changes in their behaviors at the end that are pretty great in comparison to how they were at the beginning.

And these two were definitely visited by the miscommunication elf who raised his ugly head to make their life (and mine) so difficult. They don’t learn and I hope they will learn how to properly communicate in the next Volume because I’ll lose my mind. They need to stop looking into each other’s files when they want to know something about the other, they need to stop making assumptions and they need to stop criticizing without giving a useful solution. But, I was amused by their bickering, so that wasn’t a problem for me. Seeing them pushing each other buttons was the best thing ever.

Finally, this is the slowest slow burn ever and I’m pretty happy about it. I love the tension, I love the stolen glances and I can’t wait to see was going to happen next *sigh*

What else can I say? This was intense and heartbreaking at the same time, Santino and Ais did a splendid job with this story and I highly recommend it. I don’t know why it took me so long to start this book, don’t make my mistake and read it now, seriously.

View all my reviews