| Title | : | Elysium |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 195 |
| Publication | : | First published March 30, 2019 |
The only way out of Elysium is the Nightmare buried at its core. Waking him means reigniting a long-stalled war and giving up what little is left of her humanity, but Evelyn's not going to lose her daughter again - and she's sure as hell not going to let Adam walk away a second time.
Elysium Reviews
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thousands of tumblr users found dead the morning of April 4
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Nora Sakavic the queen behind the foxhole court drops this, the first thing she has published since 2014 -- 2019 is saved
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nora sakavic's chaotic energy of dropping this without an announcement is so fucking funny
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okay nora but dropping a thing without telling anyone is such an andrew minyard move. i applaud that
sadly urban fantasy doesnt always work for me. i liked some things abt this but overall it felt like i HAD to make myself read. but you know, i hated tfc #1 at first and yet here i am. so i'm waiting for a sequel
anyway, my biggest takeaway from this, is that someone needs to make an andreil au (andrew as a dream and neil as a nightmare??? works so good) of this and let me read it because hooo boi the concept is FUN -
Nora what the fuck
3.5 stars, rounding up for the characters and the concept!!!
This is a very Nora Sakavic book in terms of characters and relationships and also, frankly, how kind of fucked up everything is. But it's also a completely different genre and it's more plot-focused than aftg, while still managing to deliver some great character and relationship dynamics.
It was also... confusing a lot of the time. It was a little infodumpy at the beginning and then it kind of stopped being infodumpy and became the opposite (I eventually stopped looking for any explanation of all the weird creatures and stuff, and it became more bearable). But it made up for with such an interesting core concept which I'm not going to talk about because I think it's nice to find out on your own. The rest of the worldbuilding will require a reread from my part if I ever wanna talk about because it was a little Much.
This was also nicely diverse, the protagonist is black, one major side character is Egyptian and gay in a sort of established relationship. The MC and at least another female character are also queer-coded.
While this could stand alone, I do believe that it will be a series, and the ending made me so eager to read the next right away.
Thanks Rin for (fake) buddy reading with me -
A blade can be nothing but a blade. Only the hand that picks it up knows that there was ever anything else worth holding.
i read the legendary All For The Game series almost a year ago, and have thought about at least one of its characters at least once every day since. this is to say that i have been waiting for something new from Nora for some time now, impatiently and anxiously. you know the feeling. like you know that this author cannot disappoint you but at the same time it's been a long time and maybe you were a fool back then and it was just dumb luck that you liked their book that much. maybe no one relates, idk, but that's exactly how i felt going in.
Elysium is nothing like the Foxhole court, and every single thing it is simultaneously.
the premise tells you everything you need to know: ley lines, magical contracts, lost daughters; in short, this is urban fantasy, and if you are keen on comparing books to something you already know, you might think, oh, isn't this The Raven Cycle.
and my answer to this is no.
or, well, maybe. The Raven Cycle on steroids, maybe. after sleeping on this book (ha), i have come to the conclusion that Elysium is something like that and American Gods combined.
but i'm stalling. i didn't come here only to throw around comparisons and annoy you with vague descriptions, because this book deserves its own evaluation (and a reread. definitely a reread as well). i will say though, i have to mention All For The Game, because i know a lot of people have read those books and are now deciding whether they want to read this one or not.
so, to start off, i want to say that despite being a complete opposite of what was the Palmetto state story, it is still a Nora Sakavic book. most of the people i know love her series with vicious devotion, and my educated guess is that the reason for it is mainly the relationships that she builds and maintains in the books. good news: Elysium has a lot to offer in terms of characters with stark personalities, defined agendas, strong sense of self, and, well, a skill for merciless banter.
some might say that Evelyn Notte is a bitch, and i'd understand why, and i think she would even agree with those people herself. but she is a woman with so much fight left in her, i would honestly follow her anywhere if i needed to navigate a supernatural underground network filled with incomprehensible creatures across America (see, this is where mr. Gaiman comparison comes from). i think that Evelyn is just. such a Nora Sakavic character. Andrew Minyard comes to mind when i want to describe her: she does questionable things, and maybe if you distance yourself from the story and think, do i know people like her in real life, you'll probably come up empty. the magic of her character is that, yes, she is unique, and she is extremely powerful, but just like with Andrew, you either accept her within this world where she makes sense, or this book is just not for you. i love, love Evelyn, even if i don't always agree with her, and even if she pisses me off sometimes, i understand that this is her nature and i admire her as a well-rounded character.
on top of that, she's got a great arc. it gets like 10 times more exciting to follow as soon as some *spoiler characters* come in, and BOY am i PISSED i cannot talk about some of them in detail without spoiling anything !!!! the banter and the most important relationships start building up just short of halfway through the book, and once you get through a bit of uncomfortable introductions you will not be able to let go of any of those psychos. the Nightmare that is mentioned in the synopsis is honest to god my everything. Evelyn's relationship with him is one (if not the only) of the most important in the book, and so it holds up to the expectation. it really carries the book, it creates conflicts and paves the way for character development, and, i guess, most importantly, turns into the found family situation that 1) we all fucking love to bits do not lie to me 2) we all fucking loved in All For The Game so that is exactly what Nora does right and you will not be disappointed 3) is simply the best trope ever. i'm not sure if there is a sequel planed, but like, hello? it practically screams do something with this new Evelyn that emerged in the end, like, she's go so much potential!!
world-building is a yes. again, bits of the series come to mind when i think of it, because here it is also obvious that the story has been in the works for a very long time. the world that Nora creates in Elysium is complex and intricate, and she as an author navigates it well. for a while the main character is relatively clueless, so i guess it helps you to understand the world better too, but it's hard to exist in a world you don't know anything about and yet Nora manages to do just that without confusing the living hell out of the reader.
the last thing i want to mention is my dumb bitch points.
me, over 40% in: hummm people are shelving it as lgbt.....where.....hmnhhh🤔🤔🤔
me like 10 pages later: oh. oh f fuclkk. are youuy. telling me. that it has been going on this entire time ohokokoko h
so yeah that is to say i am a clueless dumbass and never picked up on Anything until one of the characters literally said it out loud and it just honestly feels like All For The Game again.
in conclusion, this is Nora's world and we just be livn in it. read this book if you feel like it. don't read it if you don't. i've said everything i had to say; it's one of those books that i feel like i cannot really recommend to anyone (same thing happened with All For the Game!!! fuck!! how!!), but personally really enjoyed. as i said, i also think that i would love to reread it someday, because in true Nora fashion, there's just so so much packed into this story that i definitely did not pick up on, some things that i blinked through, some that i missed just because i sis not know their true significance etc.
but, yeah, this was a good time, it did not disappoint, and i applaud Nora for writing something so different and yet recognisable and somehow on brand. i knew what her strengths were when i finished the trilogy, but now i am sure of them, and i really hope i get to read something else of hers one day because boy are all those things up my alley. -
uhhhh... Ms. Foxhole Court just dropped this off without my knowing?
alrighty then. Should I accept this challenge or await other verdicts??? -
UM HOW TYPICAL OF NORA TO JUST DROP THIS ON US OMFG.
This is by the author of The Foxhole Court btw -
3.5 stars
review to come.... -
4 “super pumped for the next one!” Stars
My genius Foxhole Court queen finally comes back with another novel!
Honestly, at first this book was a bit confusing and I didn’t reeeally know what was going on for a bit - but that may well just have been me. It is the end of the year after all, I read this *just* before finally going on break and my brain is dead.
But anyway, once I figured out all the details and intricacies, I really enjoyed the story. This is a very interesting world that Nora has created and Evelyn is a strong, bad-ass woman and I love her.
BUT, here’s the important part: I remember the first time I read The Foxhole Court - the first book - I enjoyed it but I didn’t *love* it (yet. I do now, on re-reading it.). But it perfectly introduced everything and set up the story, the world, the characters, the various plot lines etc, so that the next two books wasted no time and were absolutely incredible. I got the very strong impression from this book that Elysium will be the same. The world has been explained and the players introduced, and now all the various story threads that have been building throughout this book - the war, most of all, but everything else too - can all come to a head in the next book (or books) and it really looks like it’s going to be very exciting and very good.
Can’t wait for Elysium 2! -
Disclaimer: I read this pre-release and I'm proud to consider Nora a friend.
So I have always had a love for the darker side of urban fantasy. No, not just dark and sexy or grimdark. I love gritty stories with teeth clench teamwork between people who are not very nice, sometimes a lot selfish, but also saving the world because they happen to you know, live in it. Even better is if they survive out of spite. This book has all of that.
The main character of Elysium is Evelyn, who has made some regrettable decision in life and is content not making any kind of decision now, lest she regrets those too. Unfortunately there is this Nightmare buried under her house and those regrettable choices places her right in the middle of a very magical and very bad war.
Evelyn is a survivor through and through, who has subconsciously chosen not to pay attention to the bigger picture because she's still reeling from the betrayal of her one time love, Adam. I looooooooved Evelyn. She's badass, she cranky, she literally has no fucks left to give.
And there are SPOILER CHARACTERS (you'll know who I'm talking about if you've read the book) who are hilarious in a "Christ, are you for real," kind of way. Due to magical bonds and horrendous pasts, Evelyn and SPOILER CHARACTERS have to work together to save the goddamn world.
As always, Nora's prose is like an amazing punch to the gut. She has a way of writing morally grey characters who are not very nice but you can't help rooting for them anyway. And even when things are dark there are these little spots of hope. Charaacters are not kind to each other, perhaps, but they aren't thoughtlessly cruel. At the end of the day, it's a found family of really fucked up people who can't find anyone else to tolerate them. -
i'm highkey wary of the black representation here (considering nora's... past... with... certain... representation...) but like i might read this.
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oh ???!!??!??!????? i don't go on tumblr for like 2 weeks and i miss nora sakavic dropping a whole book wtfjskjdjsksk
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I’m actually speechless. This book was powerful on another level. It was like nothing I’ve read before. In true Nora style, it was utterly unafraid to just GO THERE, over and over again, way over the line of decency or comfort or expected tropes. Elysium made me deeply uncomfortable, again and again, and yet somehow each time I was left reeling I just grabbed on harder and wanted more? The entire story was a mad dash sprint from start to finish, and I often felt like I was barely holding on to the ride, but I loved every single moment of it.
Like, wow. Let’s talk about the characters. There was a lot of death in this book, but there is no question that the one which affected me most involved a certain diminutive, grumpy faerie. And my favourite character was hardly featured in the story? Betty, you are a queen and I hope we see more of you in the sequel! Also, I’m obsessed with Sol. Hell, they’re all great, every one of them.
I found the urban fantasy setting of this book to be really satisfying, and the lore of this world seemed very unique. I simply adored learning more and more with each new revelation.
God, I know the sequel is probably years away but I am obsessed with this book now and I basically want to read it again immediately which is usually the test for a 5 star read for me. Nora, you did it again! -
4.5/5
um.......there has to be a sequel right? RIGHT? -
“Just out of curiosity: Do you ever go nice places?” I ask.
“Nightmare,” Sol says with all the intonation of a Duh.
I loved the concept. I loved the raw, powerful writing. I loved how this didn’t become some cheesy love story – which the premise would have easily allowed for – but still contained the appropriate amount of gay.
I did have some questions concerning the plot or how they got where they got and why, but nothing that bothered me too much, so I still decided for five stars because... Well. Because.
Someone said there has to be an Elysium AU for Andreil, and while I agree: Are we sure Andrew and Neil weren’t Nightmare and Dream from the start? Their power is Exy. Done.
I sure hope there’s gonna be at least two more parts or I might become a Nightmare myself. -
Holy hell
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Yes I just read this in one sitting. Yes I love Nora. Yes it was weird that it was a Nora book that wasn’t all for the game.
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A dream a dream a nightmare of a book.
This was so feverish and tipsy and unhinged. It tugged at all the right heartstrings. Nora has easily become my most desperate favourite author through the way she so brilliantly brings mood and feeling into her work. The All For the Game series is one big scrambled egg of emotion and love and obsession for the characters and their struggles despite the series not being that good and despite the themes not being my jam at all. Nora’s writing makes sure you’re doomed, strapped in, unable to leave.
Elysium is quite different from her other books because those were confined by rules and a certain normality of life and this was just a rabbithole/feverdream where everything got hotter and weirder and more disturbed. It doesn’t follow a typical storyline. Characters melt in and out of frame. A lot is unclear and it’s jambled and rushed and chaotic and frantic.
And it couldn’t have worked any other way.
This was absolutely brilliant and like her other books, it’s something I’ll come back to many times again. -
Ok, first of all, I just don’t have enough words to describe how much I love this book. I love everything about it and I’m so mad at all this “3 stars” reviews that mention All for the Game trilogy and it’s characters, because please just get over it. AFTG is great and deserves all the hype it gets, but Elysium is absolutely different, much more adult and complicated story. Just stop being obsessed with Andrew and read this book without any expectations.
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I'm so disappointed.
I really wanted to love this but I didn't have a clue what was going on half the time. Nothing was explained clearly and even the bits that I enjoyed I was confused by.
I'm sad. -
us:
Nora:
Nora: *drops a new book
Nora:
us: :o NORA WTF -
In a completely biased way, I loved Elysium because I love Nora Sakavic. Though it's a completely different genre and story from All for the Game, there's a lot of similar themes and motifs that appeal to readers of her first series, as well as a similarly brutal and uncompromising element of horror. If you liked AFTG, and enjoy the occasional urban fantasy, you will probably enjoy Elysium.
In a completely unbiased way, I disagree with what seems to be a common review that the world building is either too much (info-dumpy at the beginning) or too little (with larger gaps at the end). Elysium is a story about a woman who finds herself in world she doesn't know, and doesn't really care about, but is sucked into it's problems anyway. We learn about this world as Evelyn does, and only about those parts of it that she finds relevant to her personal mission. It's an appropriately nihilistic POV for a dark story, and the important bits are eventually explained before they become frustrating.
I'm excited to see where this story goes. -
I came looking for copper and I found gold (this is a badly translated Spanish phrase, but it really explains my feelings).
I love AFTG with all my heart and my two foxes tattoos. But one of the things I loved the most is how Nora could write in such a raw, deep and real way. And all the grey characters, all the blood and the pain (that it's difficult to write beautifully yet sickening) all that I found in Elysium.
That said, I must admit I could not explain to my friends what was this book about up until 30 or 40 pages, but gods, do I need more now. How, I really ask, HOW can you have THIS worldbuilding? How can you even begin to describe Evelyn Notte and SPOILER CHARACTER?
I rated it 5 stars, and I'd only make a tiny note: this universe is way too big for just this book and, I really hope we get more about it, even if it's not from Evelyn's pov. Please, please Nora, just drop any kind of content about the dynamics, the lore, ANYTHING would be enough, I swear.
And please never stop writing. -
“We are children of a dying god and foot soldiers in a war we didn't ask for."
Nora Sakavic: queen of bittersweet endings and exploring the power in a name.
I don't know how to feel about this really? I'm a bit confused? There was so much going on and so much world building that I didn't always grasp what was happening. I loved the idea of the dream/nightmare matched pairs, but Sakavic lost me on some of the deeper lore. It also wasn't what I expected at all, as I thought the main plot thread would be about Evelyn's role as the guardian of the boarding house and her relationship with it's magical tenants (a concept that excited me).
I actually think this story could be read as an allegory for how a mother deals with the death/loss of a child. Evelyn's entire character is based around what happened to her 16 years earlier: the day her husband betrayed her, she lost him and her daughter, and was tied indefinitely to Elysium. She's forced to remain at the site of her trauma, and literally cannot move on emotionally or physically. There's also some exploration into the damage of a manipulative relationship between an adult man and a teenage girl (Evelyn was 16 at the time she eloped with adult Adam).
I hate to be the person who compares it to All for the Game, as you absolutely don't need to do that to read this, but I'm going to briefly. (I'm sorry, I just re-read it so it's at the forefront of my mind right now). What I enjoy about comparing different works by the same author, especially when an author writes in a completely different genre, is to spot the recurring themes and motifs, as well as writing style.
I loved the way Nora once again explored the power in names: choosing your own name, choosing a name for someone else, being called different names by different people – but this time she tied it into a magic system. Sol and Pharaoh's obsessive and co-dependent romance was reminiscent of Neil and Andrew, and the foxes as a whole, even though we only got to see it explored in the final act (in fact I wish we'd got to explore it further).
Sakavic was also able to write in a way she clearly likes, but that people criticised in All for the Game for being unrealistic (namely: melodramatic, violent, illogical), because this is an urban fantasy story and readers are more willing to suspend their disbelief. I've always like her simultaneously straight forward and melodramatic way of writing, and the way that she gives you the minutiae that some other writers would leave out. She somehow manages to write in this instructional, slightly detached style, whilst also being very careful to get across how everyone is feeling all of the time.
So this was almost something I liked? I might have to give it a re-read with my eyeballs rather than on audio at some point to see if it makes a difference. There was a lot of potential here but it had a slightly mixed execution. I couldn't connect to it in the way I do with All for the Game although some of the characters were certainly reminiscent. However, if this hadn't been written by Sakavic I don't know if I'd ever have read it. -
Excuse me, WHAT THE FUCK????? What the ever-loving fuck is this, where did it fucking come from and why am I having to find out of its existence by chance, all by myself???? What the hell.
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I donT KNOW HOW TO FEEL ??????? maybe a review to come when my brain is working otherwise I am ??????? Eternally confused but in love I think ??????
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i hate how sakavic surfaces only once every decade
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You trivialize and ignore the fate of the world when you refuse to look beyond your own needs. Everyone else is acceptable collateral damage.
Despite the fact that I had no idea this was coming out (shoutout to Nora Sakavic for being the sneakiest person alive), I loved this and I can't wait for the sequel (which will likely be published just as secretly as this one). This is completely different in plot, genre, and mood from Nora Sakavic's other book,
The Foxhole Court, but it still has the same snark and grit that seem to be a tenant of Nora's writing. As I adored her previous series so much, I bought this as soon as I learned of its existence.
This is a very interesting and unique urban fantasy that deals a lot with raw power and a war between preternatural beings (similar to supernatural, still not completely sure what the difference is but we continue on). Evelyn Notte is the linchpin of Elysium, a portal to and from the other powerful preternatural settlements across the ley lines; this means that she is Elysium--it flows inside of her and protects her (and, with a character who talks back to people who can easily murder her as much as Evelyn does, this is a very important thing). Evelyn has spent the last 16 years stuck near Elysium, never being able to leave and living a sort of half life after the betrayal of her husband and the subsequent death of her daughter. So, when she stumbles across a maybe-corpse in a room of Elysium she didn't even know existed, she can't help but do something about it and wake him.
This poorly planned decision reveals much about Evelyn that she didn't know about herself, giving her a name for something she never knew existed before. She wakes a Nightmare, a pair to a Dream that has been thrown through Elysium's portal, and she learns that they are the end-all and be-all of the preternatural world at one front of the war. Paired up with a dragon, a ghost, and a very pessimistic Nightmare, Evelyn embarks on a cross-country/cross-portal journey to save the world, and learns about this new aspect of it that she never could have anticipated.
If you enjoyed Nora Sakavic's other series, it's possible that you'll like this too, despite the multifarious differences between the stories. If you're looking for an intriguing urban fantasy with all the twists you could ask for, then I definitely recommend you give this one a try. -
my queen nora wrote this so we will be reading 🙂↕️
