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A review by vespix
The Ones We Burn by Rebecca Mix
4.5
Some books you love at first glance. Others sneak up on you. The Ones We Burn took a while to really get going, but by the end, I loved it wholeheartedly.
"This land, this people, this girl, they were all so different from what she’d always known—but the pain was familiar. Ranka didn’t know why that was a comfort—that she could cross the continent, could leave behind everything she knew, and their hearts still broke the same."
Ranka's character arc was one of the best I've encountered in a while. Beneath all her scars and just anger, she's a lost girl with too much blood on her hands who desperately wants to be loved. She's proud to be a weapon in the hands of her coven — and now they want to wield her to kill a king.
"She’d been born no one, to nothing, but now when they sang the stories of history, her name would be the chorus."
Rebecca Mix's writing style flows well: she knows when to keep it clear and simple and how to punch you with a sentence like the one above. I'm glad my first read was in ebook, it made highlighting all the gems much easier.
And then there's the romance.
"“You love her,” said Percy. It wasn’t a question. Was a handful of months even long enough to go from hating a girl to loving her? Was she even old enough—healed enough—to know what love was?"
The romance. The axe lesbian x science lesbian enemies to lovers I was promised? It did not disappoint. The Ones We Burn has one of the best enemies to lovers storylines I've read. The girls start out as genuine enemies. They find a common cause, slowly build trust and understanding... and only then does the possibility of romance occur to them. No insta-love or insta-lust. At no point does Rebecca Mix forget their character traits and motivations to make them fit better as a couple. But she makes it work.
"“You useless lesbian. Oh, don’t glare at me like that—I’m just stating the obvious."
In conclusion? I loved it. I can't bring myself to give it full five stars because the setting felt a bit flat at times, the twins' royal roles especially having nonexistent impact on the plot.
Still, a great read. I think I'll get a hardcover for rereads, because the cover is gorgeous and I definitely will be reading it again.
Ah, and whoever made the reverse racism accusation clearly hasn't read the book. The only conflict is along the humans/witches line, and neither of those groups is racially uniform. The twins are from a human/witch marriage, and are clearly stated to take after their mother the witch... and they aren't witch oppressors. The author pretty much rolled a die for any character's appearance but trust Twitter not to check their facts before crying wolf.
"This land, this people, this girl, they were all so different from what she’d always known—but the pain was familiar. Ranka didn’t know why that was a comfort—that she could cross the continent, could leave behind everything she knew, and their hearts still broke the same."
Ranka's character arc was one of the best I've encountered in a while. Beneath all her scars and just anger, she's a lost girl with too much blood on her hands who desperately wants to be loved. She's proud to be a weapon in the hands of her coven — and now they want to wield her to kill a king.
"She’d been born no one, to nothing, but now when they sang the stories of history, her name would be the chorus."
Rebecca Mix's writing style flows well: she knows when to keep it clear and simple and how to punch you with a sentence like the one above. I'm glad my first read was in ebook, it made highlighting all the gems much easier.
And then there's the romance.
"“You love her,” said Percy. It wasn’t a question. Was a handful of months even long enough to go from hating a girl to loving her? Was she even old enough—healed enough—to know what love was?"
The romance. The axe lesbian x science lesbian enemies to lovers I was promised? It did not disappoint. The Ones We Burn has one of the best enemies to lovers storylines I've read. The girls start out as genuine enemies. They find a common cause, slowly build trust and understanding... and only then does the possibility of romance occur to them. No insta-love or insta-lust. At no point does Rebecca Mix forget their character traits and motivations to make them fit better as a couple. But she makes it work.
"“You useless lesbian. Oh, don’t glare at me like that—I’m just stating the obvious."
In conclusion? I loved it. I can't bring myself to give it full five stars because the setting felt a bit flat at times, the twins' royal roles especially having nonexistent impact on the plot.
Still, a great read. I think I'll get a hardcover for rereads, because the cover is gorgeous and I definitely will be reading it again.
Ah, and whoever made the reverse racism accusation clearly hasn't read the book. The only conflict is along the humans/witches line, and neither of those groups is racially uniform. The twins are from a human/witch marriage, and are clearly stated to take after their mother the witch... and they aren't witch oppressors. The author pretty much rolled a die for any character's appearance but trust Twitter not to check their facts before crying wolf.