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I picked this up because of the cover. A cloaked figure, a blade, darkness. Exactly the kind of thing you’d expect to be terrible. I read it in four days and immediately bought the next two books. This is not a recommendation that comes with dignity, but it is an honest one.
What’s It About?
The Way of Shadows is the first book in the Night Angel trilogy, and it follows Azoth — a gutter rat in the city of Cenaria, surviving on the streets with his friends Jarl and Doll Girl. When Azoth manages to secure an apprenticeship with Durzo Blint — the kingdom’s most feared wetboy (assassin, but more dangerous) — he gets a chance to escape his circumstances.
It costs him. Quite a lot.
From the streets to the noble estates, from cutthroat training to political conspiracy, The Way of Shadows covers a lot of ground quickly. It’s not a subtle book — Weeks is not Rothfuss — but it moves with real momentum and has more genuine emotional weight than you’d expect from the premise.
What Works
The relationship between Azoth (later Kylar) and Durzo Blint is the backbone of the novel, and Weeks handles it with more complexity than a standard master-apprentice dynamic. Durzo is not a good man in any simple sense. He’s a brilliant killer who has lived too long, lost too much, and believes in nothing — and watching Kylar navigate that while trying to hold onto his own sense of self gives the book its moral core.
The world of Cenaria is vivid. It’s an ugly place — a city known for being a political playground of powerful nobles and criminal guilds — and Weeks doesn’t sand off its corners. The poverty in the early sections is genuinely oppressive, which makes Azoth’s hunger to escape it entirely legible.
The pacing is the book’s most marketable quality. It does not stop. Weeks is an unashamed genre entertainer and The Way of Shadows earns that description — this is the kind of book you read past midnight without noticing.
What Doesn’t Quite Work
The writing is occasionally rough in ways that mark it as a debut. Some dialogue is on-the-nose. The noble court sections lack the texture of the gutter sections. And there are moments — particularly in the romantic subplot — where the prose isn’t quite handling the emotional weight it’s been given.
Compared to Abercrombie, who was writing at a very high level from his first book, Weeks is doing something more crowd-pleasing and less refined. Whether that matters depends on what you’re looking for.
Should You Read It?
If you want a fast, dark, emotionally engaging fantasy that doesn’t take itself too seriously — yes. If you want elegant prose and moral complexity at Abercrombie’s level — start with The Blade Itself instead. If you want both in your reading life, read both.
The Way of Shadows is not the most literary fantasy novel you’ll read this year. It might be the most entertaining.
Rating: 3.5/5
Rated 4.3 Stars on Amazon. Buy The Way of Shadows here.
You Might Also Like
- The Blade Itself Review
- Joe Abercrombie Books in Order
- The Edge of Darkness: 9 Grimdark Fantasy Books for Fans of Gritty Fiction
- 31 Best Fantasy Books You Need To Read Today
Check out Sunset In the East — a mind-bending short story collection from Ben Luxon.
