Scan barcode
A review by kylielovesbooks
Phoenix Flame by Sara Holland
4.0
Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed Havenfall a little bit more than this one, but it was still a solid sequel. We pick up right where we left off, and since I just finished the first one, it was great to just jump right back into the story.
I enjoyed the characters a little more, Maddie really felt like she grew from the first book. I liked the development of some of the other characters too (but I won't name them because spoilers). The character I didn't love this time around was Brekken. I liked him in the first one, but it really seemed like he was a different person in this one. I really enjoyed the family aspect in this book, but I won't go into any more detail than that.
The plot was kind of all over the place. It felt like there was enough to continue into a third book, but it all got crunched into this one. I wish some of the major things that happened were drawn out more, but every single one felt rushed. We find out about the selling of the soul-silver in the first book and that is really just so unique to me, I loved reading about how passionate Maddie was about fixing it and how it really connected everything in the book. There were some things that weren't resolved at the end, there is one character who goes off to do something important and then we never find out what happened for example.
In the first book, I loved the setting of Havenfall. That was a high point of the book for me. In this book, while we get to explore some of the other worlds, we don't get to explore them a lot. The scenes in those other worlds are rushed. I would have loved to explore them more.
There is an extra chapter at the end told from a different character's POV which I actually loved. If there happens to be another book in this series, or a spin off, I would want it to be exactly like that chapter, following that plot line. It did answer one of the questions to the unresolved plot points in the actual book, but it really only answered the what and not the how, so we are still left guessing about what exactly happened with this person.
I enjoyed Havenfall a little bit more than this one, but it was still a solid sequel. We pick up right where we left off, and since I just finished the first one, it was great to just jump right back into the story.
I enjoyed the characters a little more, Maddie really felt like she grew from the first book. I liked the development of some of the other characters too (but I won't name them because spoilers). The character I didn't love this time around was Brekken. I liked him in the first one, but it really seemed like he was a different person in this one. I really enjoyed the family aspect in this book, but I won't go into any more detail than that.
The plot was kind of all over the place. It felt like there was enough to continue into a third book, but it all got crunched into this one. I wish some of the major things that happened were drawn out more, but every single one felt rushed. We find out about the selling of the soul-silver in the first book and that is really just so unique to me, I loved reading about how passionate Maddie was about fixing it and how it really connected everything in the book. There were some things that weren't resolved at the end, there is one character who goes off to do something important and then we never find out what happened for example.
In the first book, I loved the setting of Havenfall. That was a high point of the book for me. In this book, while we get to explore some of the other worlds, we don't get to explore them a lot. The scenes in those other worlds are rushed. I would have loved to explore them more.
There is an extra chapter at the end told from a different character's POV which I actually loved. If there happens to be another book in this series, or a spin off, I would want it to be exactly like that chapter, following that plot line. It did answer one of the questions to the unresolved plot points in the actual book, but it really only answered the what and not the how, so we are still left guessing about what exactly happened with this person.