A review by prylis
Those Who Burn The Brightest by Kayla Morton

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I am thankful for the ARC I received, but nonetheless this shall be a completely honest review. Much love to the author on her first book, hope the release goes well! [No spoilers for now. Will update once the book comes out.]

I really really wanted to love this, but I’m afraid in the end it just wasn’t for me. I’m quite sad, since it has everything I love really; lesbians, fantasy, star-crossed lovers, some sort of hunger game situation. Or so I thought. 
 
I found that the blurb doesn’t represent very well the actual pace of the book, at least in my opinion? I read the first 50% pages in one go, because I kept thinking that the things that were being set up would come to term, but it only really started to move from—maybe—the 60% mark? And then, frankly, from that point on I just started to get super confused. 
 
I really think the concept was super interesting, as well as the world building, but for me I fear it felt flat once I was actually reading. This book felt like it used to be bigger, and had to be trimmed down a lot in the editing process, because most of my confusion came from the lack of information. A lot of questions I had always seemed to be answered in a super random way, like the characters talked about it before, but without us present. If I’m being completely honest, I actually would be super interested in reading a longer version of this, if it would fill in the worldbuilding blanks. 
 
The first part of the book was spent mostly just setting up the romance, but without selling super well in my opinion? We don’t actually spend a lot of time With the characters, but rather Hear about them doing things. 
What this does, is that it all feels somewhat detached. Therefore, when shit goes down, I didn’t care much about it all on an emotional point of view. 
 
I believe this might have been better as a duopoly; using the first book to really settle us in the world, and spend time with the characters, maybe even lead us after clues that would come relevant later, and then using the second book to really sell the trials while taking the time and the space to show the cruel aspect of them without skipping—maybe—what should have been quite a few more chapters in my opinion. I really am sad, because I Do see what the author was trying to do, but I can’t say confidently that she did it well. I know it seems to be setting into being a duology already, but I'm not sure if the way it was set up tickle my fancy.
 
I found that there was a lot of thing set up that could have been used in way more interesting way; which would have added to the mystery aspect of the setting. I felt some of the settings could have been pushed in a direction that would have flowed better with the romance, and making them spend time with each other and develop a relationship, while also keeping us invested in the plot instead of just making them go on dates for basically a hundred pages. 
 
This might actually be the worst thing about this book really, it’s that it honestly could have been a 5 star reads for me, but I just feel like it needed to get refined quite a bit. Especially toward the end, where now the plot was trying to both traumatize us, and feel stuff, and doing it all together in the last 50% of the book where stuff was happening. I genuinely, did not understand what was happening in the last 30%. We kept jumping from one thing to the other and I still feel like I was in a weird dream lol
 
Anyway, all of this to say, big love to the author, I know it was her first book. That experience frankly did not turn me off from her books forever, I would be open to trying one of her newer ones when they come out. But yes, I can’t say I enjoyed this book sadly.

P.S: this is my first ARC! I hope i did proper review ☆
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