A DROP OF NIGHT
by Stefan Bachmann
Genre: Young Adult, Horror
Pub Date: Mar 15, 2016
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Length: 439 pages
Spoilers: N/A
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Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she’s been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780’s to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries.
Or so she thought.
But nothing is as it seems, and the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths. . .
So… Horror
Okay. Either I’m like the worst person to read horror because it takes a LOT to disturb me or scare me or… this book just wasn’t truly horror. It relied more heavily on the mystery and lack of answers aspect than horror. It was like a mind-game was being played with the characters and yet… there were no clues being offered up throughout the course of the book to even give the reader (or the characters) a chance at figuring out the puzzle.
The MC
God. The MC, Anouk. I thought that I could get along with Anouk. I thought we might have something in common (snarky attitude and what not), but no. Anouk is just a raging bitch with literally NO redeeming qualities. She can’t even find it in herself to be civil with other people and I’m anything if not civil with people, even those whom I hate. So, this really irked me because I hated reading from her POV.
Dual-POV in Different Times
Ugh! This bothered me so much! I actually really liked Aurelie and her POV, BUT it was not appropriate for this book. For many reasons, in fact.
1) Her chapters acted as a ‘heads-up’ to the present day chapters, taking away all the potential thrill factor from them. *sigh*
2) Didn’t offer anything to the story that wasn’t already placed within the present day chapters.
3) I would’ve preferred to read the historical sections for the entire book than the present day sections because of the narrators. -.-
Oh the loose ends
One thing that kind of bothered about this story was that it was just like: “here! Answers!” And I was like… um… those don’t add up. Because they didn’t. It gave explanations to what was going on and most of it made sense, but there were a couple aspects that literally just didn’t fit into the way the story was designed. Thus, it left an unclean ending and made it feel as though there were plotholes.
Melanie Noell Bernard 
Sounds like a horror to read. 😅
I’m not a fan of standard horror stories, because it takes quite a bit to scare me too! I hate horror movies because it feels like they use surprise as a cheap tactic (the loud sounds that make everyone jump), and often in horror stories, I can’t help but to feel a lot of the characters are dumb. The exceptions are survival horror, like zombie apocalypse or something. 😆
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Hahaahaha! Yeah. it was pretty bad, but I’ve been trying to find more horror lately to really broaden my horizons. Unfortunately, YA doesn’t have any good horror that I can tell.
And yeah. Horror movies are pretty lame because the characters are dumb and they use way too many jump-scares. (Reasons why I prefer psychological horror. Much cooler and uses more of my brain. :p ) However, I do not like zombies. I think they’re a cheap tactic as well and very limited plot-wise. 
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Yep, I prefer psychological horror too, in manga at least.
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Somehow lost my emoticon upon sending; here it is -> 😆
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Haha wow this book sounded so promising but apparently it is full of my pet peeves…that’s annoying lol
Oh and yeah idk what it is but it’s really hard for a book to truly scare me in a horror sense. Maybe reading just gives me too much time to think and pick up on foreshadowing, etc. ??
Anyways, great review!
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Thank you, Angela! Glad you enjoyed my review and I totally feel you! I was really expecting big things from this book because it sounded so interesting and maybe that’s why it was such a letdown. sigh
And I think you may be on to something. I read SUPER slow so like really intense scenes don’t do much for me.
I’m still gonna read them super slow even if it would normally happen really fast in RL or a movie or something. 
I also find a lot of horror to be, well… underwhelming. It’s like there’s no originality there, but I’m still searching!
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I know how you feel about the whole being scared thing! Takes a lot to scare me as well. Books just won’t do it. Movies, rarely. Something must be wrong with us! Haha.
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Hahaha! Or perhaps we just have more darkness in us than other people. :p Pretty sure I do because the joke in my family is that I steal souls so… If your family even knows you’re dark-hearted… 😉
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Ahahaha. Well, I think it’s more along the lines of how much I watched as a teenager. I was obsessed with zombie movies, and not getting the thought of its just being a movie out of my head. I recently suggested the movie Hacksaw Ridge to my mother, and she complained about it being too gory and violent. I was thinking to myself… whattttt, I don’t even remember it being too gory. Just feels like the norm in movies. I remember watching that grudge movie and laughing so much. Think we are just too used to these things haha.
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Bahahaha! That theory totally doesn’t work for me because I was the WORST when it came to scary movies. I mean, I couldn’t handle jump-scares at all! I freaked out part way through Jaws and I couldn’t even watch The Mummy on my own. 😂
Granted, when I got older and watched horror movies with friends, all I could think was: “Wow. This is really dumb. The entire cast is really dumb. I can’t even take this seriously.” Though, I still don’t think I do gore. Not that it bothers me. Just… it’s not interesting? It seems like a cheap gimmick.
Haha! I guess I’m just not easily impressed. :p
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Lol! Whatttttt. Jaws? That’s funny xD. But I see your point. Honestly, I don’t watch many scary movies, when it comes to humans hurting eachother. I don’t see the point, and get bored. That, or I just think it’s wrong. Monster movies on the other hand… I love. I’m also a fantasy fan, so that plays a part. Guess that’s why I’m into zombie movies.
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Hahaha. What? The jump-scares got me and I am not a strong swimmer. So the idea of a shark was a scary thing… you know, in fresh water lakes and the pool. 😉
I prefer sci-fi horror to true horror because it generally has a better plot line and less stupid characters, but even then I’m not usually scared. So… 😕 And I don’t do zombies. I find them to be rather pathetic too. Sorry.
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It’s ok! Lol. I don’t need to worry about stupid characters when it comes to zombies. Because they’re already brain dead xD
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Bahahaha! But the not-brain-dead characters seem to be stupid. :p Though, I suppose they survived the apocalypse. So, they can’t be THAT stupid. Hee hee!
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