Jessica Cluess

I can't believe I wasted most of the last day reading this dreck. And after such a promising first volume, too. But the parts that were so fascinating in that book didn't really receive further development in this one. Instead, all the flaws of that first book—rampant character stereotypes, plot shaping character choices instead of the reverse, convenience trumping logic (so much convenience! so little logic!), and the protagonist choosing to take action when she should think and wallow in show more emotion when she needs to take action—were magnified and elaborated upon to an extravagant degree.

In her acknowledgments, Cluess says that the second book is "a marriage" to the first book's "courtship." I suppose she assumes we're all just like her heroine and eager to move straight from the delicious, tantalizing courtship to the controlling, abusive marriage. I'm sorry. I'm not Henrietta Howel. I don't find a controlling, abusive marriage sexy. I expect better for myself. show less

Actual Rating 2.5

I'm finding this a hard review to write. There was nothing overly wrong with this book, I think I just didn't connect with it because it was SUCH a typical YA fantasy. Nothing about this book felt original. I'm also getting really tired of the "chosen one" trope and it's used quite a bit in A Shadow Bright and Burning. Normally this would be exactly my kind of book but it just didn't work for me at all.

At the beginning we find out Henrietta has the magical power of bursting show more into flame while her clothes don't burn off her. That would be too inconvenient for this story and there was absolutely nothing inconvenient about the entire plot. Anyways, Henrietta gets swept off to live in a fancy house with the other sorcerers because she's *gasp* the only female sorcerer living. Not to mention the only female character in the whole book? Enter special snowflake trope. Her character at the start of the book wansn't too bad but the farther the story went the more annoying she got. She started off strong and lost her character along the way.

I also need to talk about the weird love triangle (square?) we had going on. I'm still not sure who the actual love interest of the story was? There were way too many guys interested and Henrietta just kind of floated from boy to boy without anything actually happening. I guess it makes sense sine there was apparently no other girls in this fantasy world. Magnus somehow does a complete 180. He's cocky and fun at the start and eventually turns into a total ass (that's all I can say without spoiling anything) but then he and Henrietta are bffs again by the end. It makes no sense.

Basically this whole book felt like little pieces of one big story without all the connecting elements that would make it a full story. Too many little things were going on and the important things, like the information about the ancients, were just kind of thrown into the story at random moments with not enough detail. If you've never read much YA fantasy then you might like this one. Otherwise, this book wasn't anything special. show less

I liked this a lot. It was one of those books that I wanted to just keep reading because it was fun! Plus, there were ACTUALLY DRAGONS which made me happy. The story was well written, kept a good pace, and was interesting. The characters were pretty well rounded too. It was cool to be shifted into everyone's head and point of view.
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I especially loved how natural the book was about LGBTQIA+ relationships. They were there and accepted and wonderful.
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One complaint is that were a few Deus ex show more machinas, but they weren't too too obnoxious. I'm looking forward to the next in the series when it comes out!! show less

Dragons are awesome and majestic, and this book is so full of them that it can only be fun. My only expectation going into this new world was that it should entertain me and I should enjoy my reading experience, and it totally delivered on what I wanted.

This was a very plot driven narrative, and it felt different after a long time because I tend to gravitate so much towards character driven stories. The author just throws us right in the middle of chaos and we get to follow along wherever show more it goes. There are five POVs but after the initial introductions, I didn’t find it hard to tell them apart and I think that was cool. I will not say that this book is reinventing the wheel, because the concept of a Trial (or multiple) to win a throne in pretty common in YA fantasy. So while it was tad bit predictable, it was also fun to follow the contests, guess who might be the winners, predict their motives and just be thoroughly entertained. The world building is certainly limited because we are very much concentrated on the trials, but we do get to know a bit of history in between and I found that sufficient for now.

But the best part of this book were the dragons. Many books promise these majestic beasts these days in their titles but they are usually missing from action within the story itself, but I’m so happy that’s not the case here. All the dragons are very much a part of the narrative, have very distinct personalities and their own kind of relationships with their counterpart humans. I loved seeing how they seemed to complement each other so well, and all their bonding moments were absolutely spectacular. There’s a little one called Dog who is the most adorable ever and I don’t think I’ll be forgetting him anytime soon.

And coming to the main characters, I liked that we had a spectrum of them ranging from ruthless to power hungry to desperate to resourceful to tortured... all very distinct, who weren’t even sure if they wanted to rule the kingdom but slowly came to realize what was important to them. I also liked how they each came from very different backgrounds and life experiences, which defines the kind of person they are and also gives us a glimpse of what kind of a ruler they might be. They are all competitors but it was also nice to see them reluctantly bond or work together sometimes. I don’t know if I can yet pick whom I like decisively because I really loved certain qualities in every single one of them, except one person whom I wouldn’t wanna spoil. Romance is also not much of an important part of this story and there’s only one relationship, which we only get glimpses of. But I was glad to see it was two women in love and there was no homophobia involved.

The adults in the book are nothing much to be spoken about because like many of the YA novels we know, they were on a scale of useless to abhorrent, with maybe one being redeemable. The antagonists might seem predictable to some readers, but I certainly didn’t see the betrayals coming.

In the end, I just wanna say I enjoyed this book a lot. While I found it good all throughout and didn’t wanna put it down, I thought the last 10-15% was amazing and I truly did not expect that ending. That was spectacular and I’m already so excited for the conclusion, which I suppose won’t be coming out for another year. All I want to say is that if you love dragons a lot and want to enjoy reading some nice YA fantasy, then this might be just the right choice. If you are looking for something very unique or new that has never been done before, then this is not it. I have seen the comparisons to Game of Thrones in other reviews and they maybe right... but I was never a fan of those books and I certainly like this version because it’s more to my taste. show less