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A review by daniella84
Phoenix Flame by Sara Holland
2.0
Thank you to Bloomsbury for giving me access to an early copy to review!
All I wanted from the first one was for Maddie to be able to go to the different worlds, and I'm glad this one provided that (however briefly). There were definitely some issues with pacing, with long sections of relationship drama interspersed with plot points that were solved too quickly. The relationship with Brekken was a little too close to Jacob in Twilight for my liking - Maddie emotionally manipulates him into doing things for her and then cries about it when he says no, basically drops him as soon as Taya is back in her life - and I think this book would have been improved if the love triangle weren't there or if the dynamic between Brekken and Maddie were improved. The relationship with Taya was cool (apart from them basically being stepsisters which is...unnecessary) and I'm glad they left it on a more open note!
Overall I think this just suffered from how short it is, and there were so many different threads that needed to be tied together neatly at the end that it felt unsatisfying. The most that I can say is that it was a bit more interesting than the first book, but it just felt underdeveloped and rushed :/
All I wanted from the first one was for Maddie to be able to go to the different worlds, and I'm glad this one provided that (however briefly). There were definitely some issues with pacing, with long sections of relationship drama interspersed with plot points that were solved too quickly. The relationship with Brekken was a little too close to Jacob in Twilight for my liking - Maddie emotionally manipulates him into doing things for her and then cries about it when he says no, basically drops him as soon as Taya is back in her life - and I think this book would have been improved if the love triangle weren't there or if the dynamic between Brekken and Maddie were improved. The relationship with Taya was cool (apart from them basically being stepsisters which is...unnecessary) and I'm glad they left it on a more open note!
Overall I think this just suffered from how short it is, and there were so many different threads that needed to be tied together neatly at the end that it felt unsatisfying. The most that I can say is that it was a bit more interesting than the first book, but it just felt underdeveloped and rushed :/