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A review by jitsumi1221
Incendiary by Zoraida Córdova
3.0
Possible Triggers:
Death | Trauma | Mutilation/Torture
Characters:
This story followed one point of view (Renata Convida) for the entirety of the book.
Renata - Not my favorite main character. While she is a determined and strong character, oftentimes, she also seems to flounder and wallow excessively. Please note, she has gone through A LOT stuff that warrants the grief she struggles with. With the focus being so much on her grief, It just makes the story feel like a heavier, more emotionally dragging book.
Castian - This character wasn’t really developed much in the story. I have a feeling that we will know more in the next book, but almost the entirety of this one was you learning about him through hearsay… which may or may not be coloured by whomever is currently talking about him. Since we didn’t learn a bunch about him (from the main source - himself), I’m curious about his potential to be an awesome character. At the moment he's pretty bland.
Positives:
+ SO DARK AND TWISTY. All of the twists. All of the darkness. I appreciate the darker tone throughout the entire book. Sorta like grimdark for YA.
+ The magic was interesting. I would love to know more about the boundaries and limitations of it. I like that the magic is so tied to the religion and culture of the Moria.
Negatives:
- Can’t say i am the biggest fan of how much everyone seems to ‘hate’ the main character all the darn time, for no real defined (valid) reason? I mean they mentioned that she has a special type of Magics that is rare and valued…. You would think if you had that on your team, willingly, for years, you would, i dunno, appreciate it a little more. If the reason is because of ‘past transgressions’, she was a small child. Has anyone met small children before? Can someone's entire existence be narrowed down to a single point of hatred just because of something they did when they were children: unknowingly, with BAD parental figures? Don’t most people generally blame ‘parenting’ in those cases?
- I have a few nitpicky things, basically pertaining to battle and fighting through previously sustained injuries. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail because it can be spoilery, but I think the story would have been improved, if the author had spent a little more time researching how injuries can affect fighting. Really it's just details, but details can be very important. Especially when it comes to situations where it just rings completely wrong while you are reading it. It is not easy to snap a person's neck. It may be quite impossible to do any dexterous hand manipulations when your forearms have been subjected to torture. The amount of blood loss discussed in many of the chapters just blows my mind; you donate a pint and you feel weak. That's assuming you are in good enough health to do so. Here we are reading about characters that struggle even to have the proper amount of food daily - malnourished and often beaten down. Again, this is a big nitpick for me. It didn’t ruin the story, but it certainly disrupted the flow.
Final Thoughts:
I have so many conflicting feelings about this book. On the one hand, the pacing was at times very slow, usually when she is wallowing in the hatred she perceives from everyone around her. There is a lot of self-isolation, a lot of despair, and a repetitive amount of betrayal. Really a circuitous pattern of hatred, despair at hatred, self isolation, betrayal. This is not a happy book. On the other hand, when the action was really going, oh my goodness, I would tear through pages trying to keep up. Overall I thought the book was interesting enough to pick up the second one when it comes out. I do hope that the main character’s angst calms down a little bit though, you can only take so much “everyone hates me” before it gets a bit eye-rolly.
Death | Trauma | Mutilation/Torture
Characters:
This story followed one point of view (Renata Convida) for the entirety of the book.
Renata - Not my favorite main character. While she is a determined and strong character, oftentimes, she also seems to flounder and wallow excessively. Please note, she has gone through A LOT stuff that warrants the grief she struggles with. With the focus being so much on her grief, It just makes the story feel like a heavier, more emotionally dragging book.
Castian - This character wasn’t really developed much in the story. I have a feeling that we will know more in the next book, but almost the entirety of this one was you learning about him through hearsay… which may or may not be coloured by whomever is currently talking about him. Since we didn’t learn a bunch about him (from the main source - himself), I’m curious about his potential to be an awesome character. At the moment he's pretty bland.
Positives:
+ SO DARK AND TWISTY. All of the twists. All of the darkness. I appreciate the darker tone throughout the entire book. Sorta like grimdark for YA.
+ The magic was interesting. I would love to know more about the boundaries and limitations of it. I like that the magic is so tied to the religion and culture of the Moria.
Negatives:
- Can’t say i am the biggest fan of how much everyone seems to ‘hate’ the main character all the darn time, for no real defined (valid) reason? I mean they mentioned that she has a special type of Magics that is rare and valued…. You would think if you had that on your team, willingly, for years, you would, i dunno, appreciate it a little more. If the reason is because of ‘past transgressions’, she was a small child. Has anyone met small children before? Can someone's entire existence be narrowed down to a single point of hatred just because of something they did when they were children: unknowingly, with BAD parental figures? Don’t most people generally blame ‘parenting’ in those cases?
- I have a few nitpicky things, basically pertaining to battle and fighting through previously sustained injuries. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail because it can be spoilery, but I think the story would have been improved, if the author had spent a little more time researching how injuries can affect fighting. Really it's just details, but details can be very important. Especially when it comes to situations where it just rings completely wrong while you are reading it. It is not easy to snap a person's neck. It may be quite impossible to do any dexterous hand manipulations when your forearms have been subjected to torture. The amount of blood loss discussed in many of the chapters just blows my mind; you donate a pint and you feel weak. That's assuming you are in good enough health to do so. Here we are reading about characters that struggle even to have the proper amount of food daily - malnourished and often beaten down. Again, this is a big nitpick for me. It didn’t ruin the story, but it certainly disrupted the flow.
Final Thoughts:
I have so many conflicting feelings about this book. On the one hand, the pacing was at times very slow, usually when she is wallowing in the hatred she perceives from everyone around her. There is a lot of self-isolation, a lot of despair, and a repetitive amount of betrayal. Really a circuitous pattern of hatred, despair at hatred, self isolation, betrayal. This is not a happy book. On the other hand, when the action was really going, oh my goodness, I would tear through pages trying to keep up. Overall I thought the book was interesting enough to pick up the second one when it comes out. I do hope that the main character’s angst calms down a little bit though, you can only take so much “everyone hates me” before it gets a bit eye-rolly.