Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma is one of the best dark academia enemies to lovers I've read in a very long time! There was just so much to love about this book. The vibes are all here. It's dark and gritty, dangerous and sexy. I loved the varying scales of gray morality that more characters showed. Good and evil were hardly relevant here because of the wide range of morally gray characters. And the characters were all so interesting and unique. I loved getting to know them throughout the story. The writing was atmospheric and flowing without being too flowery. The plot was intriguing and engaging with all sorts of dark twists. And I loved the way this book portrayed vampires! The audiobook narration was great too! The narrator's voice was perfect for bringing the characters and story to life.

Thank you to Hachette Audio and Netgalley for this alc in exchange for an honest review.

First, I went in with high hopes for this book and while some were definitely met, others were not.

One of the biggest let downs for me was the worldbuilding. It was often muddied or thrown at the reader with little explanation, or terms used that don’t quite have meaning yet. I think it may be just because it’s a debut and some of that could use editing. I do feel like the surroundings could have been described better as well. What style house are they in? A LOT of the novel depends on the house and I just felt at a loss as to how to picture it, which removes a reader from the story.

While I did enjoy the morally grey concept, I still need to care about the characters. I liked Kidan’s strength but I found that sometimes I couldn’t care about her plight too much because of how things were portrayed. I kind of wavered a lot with her. As for Susenyos, I just wish we had a bit more description about his looks and some more sensual details because I just found him to be careless and cold — which I guess is the point for how old he was and his past, but I feel like if I’m to believe an E2L story, I need something more to feel like he’s an attractive character.

One thing I absolutely loved was the diversity of characters and rich history of everything. The author clearly has done research and situates the book in a realistic manner. I enjoyed the richness this added to the story. This is the main reason I’ll continue the series as it really sucked me in. I also loved the dark academia setting and wish we got more in depth in terms of the schooling. I was so invested when they had to do their question for the prof.

This book definitely feels a lot more NA than YA. I kind of feel that this would be better marketed to adults than teens since it may not get the same attention. It has similar vibes to Where Sleeping Girls Lie, If We Were Villains, and some of Ninth House.

I received the audio version and I do recommend it! But perhaps it may have led to some of my confusion as I couldn’t backtrack easily to double check facts or words. I did really enjoy the narration and thought they did a truly superb job at bringing these characters to life!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review!

This was a lot of fun, I binged almost half of the audio in one sitting however my interest in the plotline dwindled a bit for the rest of it. Im not sure if this was a me issue but it kind of felt like it was losing steam in both its romance and mystery of June's dissappearance. I really enjoyed the audiobook, one of the best male impersonations I've heard.

This was such an interesting concept and I thought that it was well done for the most part.

The book is told from the point-of-view of Kidan. She is searching for her sister after she went missing. Her family has been a part of this elite university but it seems that danger follows them and now Kidan is tasked with finding out what is really going on. I thought that Kidan was pretty fearless. She did what she wanted and went into the beast so to speak. She really cares for her sister and would do anything to see her again and I can totally relate because I have sisters of my own. Sometimes her fearlessness felt kind of reckless because she didn’t care to learn the rules of Uxlay and how the humans and vampires coexist which caused a lot of issues and tension between Susenyos but I also understand that because she hated them with a passion and why try to coexist with them.

The romance aspect of the story wasn’t my favorite and I think that is why I didn’t like this book as much. It’s obviously not as dark as some books because this is YA, but I just didn’t see the redeeming qualities in the relationship. It’s very much cat and mouse vibes and I think others will really enjoy it as well as the morally greyness of them.

I do think the pacing could have been a bit better because it was kind of slow in the beginning as it built everything up but once you get to the 50% mark it picks up and goes really well from there.

Overall, this was an interesting vampire read. I liked the narration of the audiobook and going along for the ride as the mystery unfolded.

At the end of the day, the weird shame/pride and hatred/attraction tug of war between Kidan and Susenyos was a major nope from me. Their interactions felt oily and gross and gave me the ick from the very first time we saw Susenyos on page. And with so much of the story focusing on Susenyos and Kidan’s obsession with him, we don’t really get to build the dark academia setting firmly. There are obviously clear rules in this vampire society, but we don’t really understand them in the first half of the book because Kidan doesn’t care to learn them, so we don’t get a sense of how far out of line she is.

This was a five star read for me - but I don't think it should have been published as YA. I agree the world building spectacular and the characters are deliciously unlikeable. Girma does a beautiful job taking dark academia and vampire stories and weaving them into a compelling narrative that will leave fans of both sub-genres satisfied. Full of unlikable characters and toxic relationships - a true enemies to lovers. I think teens will love this.

As for the audiobook, I had already over half of the book when I added the audio in but I really wanted to hear how the audiobook pronounced a lot of the names/words I was unfamiliar with and it definitely enhanced my experience to listen along. The audiobook is well made. I generally liked the narrator though I did not like the voice she used for Susenyos - I realize this may be because I had already assigned him a voice in my head.