Review: The Core

The Core by Peter V. Brett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I AM NOT OKAY.

I put this book off for a year because of the size of it, but as soon as I picked it up I was lost again in this incredible, epic world.

Everything about this series has been fantastic. The world building has been incredible, and the questions around religion and worship in particular have had me fascinated. I loved reading about the Krasians, despite them being a rather backwards, brutal people, because the nuances of their faith were so absorbing. I'm going to miss that. I'm going to miss these characters, and this world.

Beware ahead: This review will likely contain spoilers for previous books.

This book throws our heroes straight into the deep end. Arlen and Jardir - working together in an uneasy truce - have decided it's time to venture down into the Core to take care of this demon problem once and for all.

So straight up, I'm a happy girl because I LOVE Arlen and Jardir together. They're so different, but both honourable in their own ways (we'll just ignore that whole betrayal thing). They believe rather opposite things, but through the course of this book we see them start to finally understand one another a bit more. They've got a couple others along for the ride, and the group works well together.

Meanwhile, Leesha's making things happen as always in Hollow County, Abban's in a world of trouble, Inevera is plotting more plots, Ragen and Elissa are getting some decent air time, and a handful of other characters are stepping more into the spotlight here.

I do feel maybe it was a few too many perspectives - it does tend to slow the book a little and I can see how this might frustrate other readers. I think because I love the world so much, I was happy to hear a bit more about people and places and what was going down. But I did miss some characters and I wish we'd been able to spend more time with people like Abban, who has been such a crucial player in the previous books. I do think a few things were included mostly so that they could be tied up at the end. It all worked okay for me and I still blitzed through this book, but some may be frustrated by the diversion from Arlen's journey.

There's also a few things that I feel like we didn't get any kind of resolution for, but since I know there's a sequel series I'm not mad about it yet. I'm hoping a lot of my questions will be answered there while introducing a new generation. Otherwise, there's a few things that were included in this book that maybe weren't entirely necessary.

I did enjoy the array of demons we had in this book, but there were also some really badass ones that I wish we'd met before this book! The author was holding out on us, man! But the fight scenes and the creativity of the battles was just epic; the scale is always massive and there's a particular moment where a character makes an observation that really hammered that home for me.

There are just so many things about this series that I've loved. The pace has always been perfect for me, with plenty of action and horrific scenes of slaughter (both demon and human) that keep the stakes high. This is one of those series where you know no one is safe, and I loved that. The character building across the series has been brilliant, so by the end of this book (or their part in the story) you do feel like you really knew them and why they made the choices they did.

Honestly, I just can't gush about this series enough. It's been such a brilliant read and I'm so glad I started off my 2025 reading with this epic conclusion.

Really looking forward to reading The Desert Prince because I'm desperate for more of this world.

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