2.52k reviews for:

The Phoenix Keeper

S.A. MacLean

3.95 AVERAGE

jensenart's review against another edition

4.0

emotional inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Quick very high level summary. 

Aila is a zookeeper at a magical zoo filled with creatures like dragons, unicorns, and griffins. She specializing in phoenixes, particularly the critically endangered Silimalo phoenixes. She is tasked with proving her zoo's facilities are suitable to house the male phoenixes so she teams up with Luciana, to prepare the zoo's facilities. Luciana is a griffin keeper and Aila’s former academic rival. 

 

My Take. 

Themes of conservation, social anxiety, grief, and the complexities of relationships all made this an enjoyable and relatable read for me. This story made me wish that a magical book truly existed. I need to work there. I also enjoyed that this story actually gives people a view into what zoo’s actually do for conservation of a species. This my second book by this author and I seem to truly enjoy her writing. I actually decided to read this because of the ARC of Voidwalker I read and enjoyed. This was defiantly more crazy then Voidwalker but still enjoyable. 

jasmine_newton's review against another edition

2.0

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I really wanted to like this more than I did. It has such a cool concept, a zoo, but filled with fantasy animals. I really love magical realism especially when the plot is very mundane. However, aside from the concept itself the plot was kind of boring. Every single plot element I was able to figure out in the first 50 pages. Normally I’m not against this if the ride to the plot points I fun, but it played out in possibly the most standard having to get their way possible. None of the characters were incredibly interesting, or compelling. I didn’t even really find any of the character dynamics that compelling. I found Alia to be lacking as a protagonist. She goes through a decent enough arc about her anxiety, stage fright, and general imposter syndrome that kept me interested. Other than that she just came off as never striking a proper balance as a character. With her even coming off as slightly unlikable at times, when I felt like some of her mistakes were meant to and should have come off as more endearing and sympathetic. Plus I got crazy bad second hand embarrassment from some of the character dialogue. It just felt off constantly.

malloryt50's review

4.5

funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

estelleidekreads's review against another edition

3.5

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i don’t tend to like modern fantasies as much but this defo worked for me. 

at first i really enjoyed the cosy fantasy aspects of this book but it ended up getting a bit tedious - i think the pacing just didn’t work for me.

i really liked the romance in this and the found the character growth was both decent and enjoyable to read. 

also loved all the queer rep and that the side characters had their own thing going on - although they didn’t feel as developed as i tend to like.

I called the “plot twist” pretty much from the beginning & found it quite frustrating how transparent the villain’s motivations were

although as an autistic person who’s very gullible and is rather susceptible to manipulation i think that was quite a good representation of that even if the MC’s autistic traits are labelled as anxiety

this book has one of my most hated aspects which is having very obviously autistic traits being labelled as anxiety. not only is it extremely frustrating to read but i think it’s really harmful especially considering how many autistic people (especially afabs) don’t get diagnosed until they’re adults because of this misconception that it’s “just” social anxiety. that being said i try not to let that affect my rating too much because i want to give the authors the benefit of the doubt in case they themselves turn out to have been undiagnosed autistic ppl. 

lilymurph's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

hannb1004's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Absolutely loved it! Like no cosy fantasy I've ever read before! Loved the red herrings, the character development was unexpected at time. And the relationships were beautiful 😍 

nessareadsbooks's review

4.0

funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

rhorn27's review against another edition

4.75

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

vistacellista's review

4.25

funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

punctual_oak's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes