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A review by abesum
The Ones We Burn by Rebecca Mix
2.0
2.5
Overall, this book was just okay. I enjoyed it alright enough, and it kept me decently entertained for the most part. The main cast of characters all felt unique and had their own tone. They made an interesting group and had a great dynamic. I liked Ranka a lot as a main character. She was pretty well written. Aramis was also well written, and I enjoyed learning more about her as the story went on. This book had more world building than I expected, which was great. I liked the overall vibes, and the dialogue was decent.
There were a number of things though that fell kind of flat or felt unfinished.
For some reason, I just couldn't buy into the fact that Galen and Amaris are royalty. There isn't an established court, and things don't run as you'd expect from a typical royalty story. They constantly are sneaking out and doing what they want. If the king and queen died young, wouldn't there be a lot of guards to keep an eye on them? Around the 60% mark, it's mentioned that the place is heavily guarded. So they do have a huge staff, but no one ever notices their 2 remaining royals are constantly missing?
This leads me to my next point. Since there's no established court system, no advisors, no strategists, etc, who exactly is enforcing rules/traditions? It's a big plot point that Aramis can't be next in line due to her not being magical, but who exactly can enforce that at this point, since all of the other royals are dead? They spend so long complaining about how Galen has to be king and that Aramis wants to rule, but they never just change the rules themselves. At the very end, there's suddenly a council, but it never appears in a useful way earlier in the story. Suddenly, Galen has the idea at the end to give the throne to Aramis. What was stopping him the entire book to not do that earlier?
There was also a line that confused me. The author says Galen was getting information held from him about the destruction of his kingdom, but then later on they mention how they've been waiting for the moment where Galen stands up and takes responsibility as king. How was he supposed to do that if he's getting information about his land kept from him?
There was also a part where it was mentioned that The Hands would torture and kill Foldrey for info if he was captured and that they wouldn't ransom him. Why wouldn't they? He's the step in father figure to the prince and princess, as well as the head guard. That line of thinking just made no sense. It felt like a very heavy-handed way of trying to convince the audience that Foldrey was dead.
The entire scene where Foldrey supposedly dies was very weird. All it did was make Aramis and Galen look really stupid. Them sneaking out, seeing him with The Hands, and then insisting that they go unnecessarily into danger was strange.
The whole "Percy helped create winalin" storyline was so undeveloped, I forgot that was even a thing until it got mentioned offhand again at around page 250. It didn't really add anything to the story. It felt unnecessary and just made his story seem unfinished.
It said The Hands found science heretical, but that was after they were shown in their lab injecting witches with a winalin strain. Apparently, they're anti science and anti witch, so what do they even believe in? Also, it made no sense that the witches would align with The Hands and destroy the cure to the disease that kills witches. The witch leaders just being "power hungry" for potential blood witches just seemed so thrown in and unrealistic. They had zero proof that it actually worked, and everything they did see was that it killed them.
Ranka sees the vaccine could work. She knows winalin kills witches. And yet she destroys the vaccine after 1 conversation with her parental figure? Yeva, her best friend, died of the disease, and Ranka just destroys the vaccine so quickly?
Foldrey being evil felt off. Why wouldn't Ranka connect that he's involved after he eluded to her that he is? Ranka mentioned that Foldrey knew the entire time that The Hands were creating winalin. There was no reason for him to keep that to himself if he wasn't evil, and she should've connected the dots sooner. If he was watching the witch burning with The Hands undesguised, wouldn't the twins have made the connection that they let him in because they knew him? Why would he choose his "last words" to be so kind to Galen when he could've unnerved him, making him want to leave the kingdom (like he says later that he wants to ship them away)?
Either way, I didn't hate this book. I felt it just had a lot of technical issues. Ranka and Aramis were very cute, though, 10/10 for them.
Overall, this book was just okay. I enjoyed it alright enough, and it kept me decently entertained for the most part. The main cast of characters all felt unique and had their own tone. They made an interesting group and had a great dynamic. I liked Ranka a lot as a main character. She was pretty well written. Aramis was also well written, and I enjoyed learning more about her as the story went on. This book had more world building than I expected, which was great. I liked the overall vibes, and the dialogue was decent.
There were a number of things though that fell kind of flat or felt unfinished.
For some reason, I just couldn't buy into the fact that Galen and Amaris are royalty. There isn't an established court, and things don't run as you'd expect from a typical royalty story. They constantly are sneaking out and doing what they want. If the king and queen died young, wouldn't there be a lot of guards to keep an eye on them? Around the 60% mark, it's mentioned that the place is heavily guarded. So they do have a huge staff, but no one ever notices their 2 remaining royals are constantly missing?
This leads me to my next point. Since there's no established court system, no advisors, no strategists, etc, who exactly is enforcing rules/traditions? It's a big plot point that Aramis can't be next in line due to her not being magical, but who exactly can enforce that at this point, since all of the other royals are dead? They spend so long complaining about how Galen has to be king and that Aramis wants to rule, but they never just change the rules themselves. At the very end, there's suddenly a council, but it never appears in a useful way earlier in the story. Suddenly, Galen has the idea at the end to give the throne to Aramis. What was stopping him the entire book to not do that earlier?
There was also a line that confused me. The author says Galen was getting information held from him about the destruction of his kingdom, but then later on they mention how they've been waiting for the moment where Galen stands up and takes responsibility as king. How was he supposed to do that if he's getting information about his land kept from him?
There was also a part where it was mentioned that The Hands would torture and kill Foldrey for info if he was captured and that they wouldn't ransom him. Why wouldn't they? He's the step in father figure to the prince and princess, as well as the head guard. That line of thinking just made no sense. It felt like a very heavy-handed way of trying to convince the audience that Foldrey was dead.
The entire scene where Foldrey supposedly dies was very weird. All it did was make Aramis and Galen look really stupid. Them sneaking out, seeing him with The Hands, and then insisting that they go unnecessarily into danger was strange.
The whole "Percy helped create winalin" storyline was so undeveloped, I forgot that was even a thing until it got mentioned offhand again at around page 250. It didn't really add anything to the story. It felt unnecessary and just made his story seem unfinished.
It said The Hands found science heretical, but that was after they were shown in their lab injecting witches with a winalin strain. Apparently, they're anti science and anti witch, so what do they even believe in? Also, it made no sense that the witches would align with The Hands and destroy the cure to the disease that kills witches. The witch leaders just being "power hungry" for potential blood witches just seemed so thrown in and unrealistic. They had zero proof that it actually worked, and everything they did see was that it killed them.
Ranka sees the vaccine could work. She knows winalin kills witches. And yet she destroys the vaccine after 1 conversation with her parental figure? Yeva, her best friend, died of the disease, and Ranka just destroys the vaccine so quickly?
Foldrey being evil felt off. Why wouldn't Ranka connect that he's involved after he eluded to her that he is? Ranka mentioned that Foldrey knew the entire time that The Hands were creating winalin. There was no reason for him to keep that to himself if he wasn't evil, and she should've connected the dots sooner. If he was watching the witch burning with The Hands undesguised, wouldn't the twins have made the connection that they let him in because they knew him? Why would he choose his "last words" to be so kind to Galen when he could've unnerved him, making him want to leave the kingdom (like he says later that he wants to ship them away)?
Either way, I didn't hate this book. I felt it just had a lot of technical issues. Ranka and Aramis were very cute, though, 10/10 for them.