Reviews

Serce w płomieniach by Richelle Mead

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jg1987's review against another edition

5.0

ADRIAN!!!!!!!!!!!
The book was great as expected. I'm such a huge Adrian fan, even from the VA series. I'm happy he's finally getting some :-)

secretmagic's review against another edition

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3.0

It took me a while to write this review, or to even get the motivation to start, mostly because I didn’t know how to put into words what I felt about this book. I love the Vampire Academy world, I really do. Vampire Academy is one of my favourite YA series’ and I just adore it. Unfortunately, that hasn’t really stretched over to the Bloodlines series. It’s a bit of a hit and miss track with me, and The Fiery Heart landed in the miss column. I’ve come to expect so much from this series. I may be a little swayed by Rose’s action pack adventures in the Vampire Academy series, but Sydney just doesn’t inspire the same spark within me. I love that she’s stepping out and leaving behind her Alchemist ways – becoming more familiar with the vampire world (in more ways than just accepting them *wink**wink*) But there’s just something missing from Bloodlines that makes me not as excited for Sydney’s adventures. I feel like we’re taking one step forward and twelve steps back.

There were some big changes in The Fiery Heart - not just in the storyline, but in the way the novel was told. Sydney is no longer our sole narrator, with Adrian stepping up to take over half the narration. I’ll admit this was part of the reason it took me so long to read the latest Bloodlines book. It wasn’t so much that I disliked Adrian’s potential voice – and was only partly because I felt a little shocked that the POV was suddenly changing – it was mostly because split POV screams of danger; that something so terrible is going to happen, you need a back-up narrator to keep you in the loop for what’s been left behind. And it’s true, there’s some major stuff happening at the end, but I feel like we had so much prior warning leading up to it, that it didn’t hit me as hard as I expected.

I was disappointed with this book. It seemed like the major plot-lines – Sydney’s growth with magic, Jill’s potential danger, the search for a Spirit-Cure – all took a step backwards to Adrian and Sydney’s romance. If they weren’t blowing off the rest of their responsibilities to make-out, they were sending endless “I love you” text messages that were just waiting to be discovered by the growing group of dhampirs, moroi and alchemists hanging out in Palm Springs. I’m a person who likes romance in stories, but I feel like this time, it was a little over the top. I’m happy to see Sydney grow, I’m REALLY happy to see Adrian find someone who wants to support him and love him; but what I really wanted was the intense, action and mystery story I’ve come to love from Richelle Mead. There was so much that could have been explored, but we seemed to only get a few surface glimpses at progress to Strigoi-remedies and I think only one mention of Jill’s actual danger issues. It wasn’t what I was expecting.

I found myself grabbing onto little things and probably blowing them up into bigger issues. But one of my main issues was the rapid increase of people in Palm Springs. What started off as a secret mission to keep Jill away from her own kind and protect her from any strange and unknown people who might give her away, has turned into a massive group that now needs a minivan to take them places - and to top it off, they're all mostly inexperienced teens. There are no adults at all looking out for the group. This doesn’t scream hidden and secretive to me. I feel like Jill’s apparent danger has been all but forgotten, and in its place, romance, magic and an endless supply of new tattoos have taken centre stage.

Strangely, for myself, my favourite part of this book was the small bits to do with Spirit. I’ve actually never been much of a fan of Spirit. It seems to pop up as the saviour of all things at just the right moment, and so I resent it a bit. But I really enjoyed being in Adrian’s head and seeing Spirit from his POV. I loved seeing him step up and try helping with the Strigoi-Spirit cure and I really wanted to see more of that. I think that’s what was missing most for me – some driving plot, other than the endless scenes of Sydney and Adrian’s relationship, to really kick-start the blood pumping excitement. I feel like the Bloodlines hasn’t really found its feet. Maybe it’s a magic and witchcraft series, maybe the alchemists are the main focus, maybe Spirit is making a come-back, or maybe it was always a romance series and the rest are subplots...I just can’t work it out.

I want to love this series, so I’m going to keep trying with it – and not just because I refuse to give up on it because it’s Richelle Mead – but because I think there’s something hiding beneath the surface, ready to WOW me. I really hope there’s more action in the next book. I feel like it has potential. We’re given a pretty harsh and crazy ending in The Fiery Heart so I’m definitely getting my hopes up. I don’t need or want Sydney to be another Rose, because there’ll only be one Rose in the VA world; but I do want her to be a fighter and I think she can get there. I just don’t think we’ve seen it yet, and I need to see it. We’ve seen cool, calculating Sydney; we’ve seen intelligent Sydney; we’ve seen romantic/lusty Sydney. Let’s bring on badass Sydney, please.

3/5 stars

kippins's review against another edition

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3.0

Male Character : Adrian....I've always loved him but I don't know I was expecting more. I was so looking forward to his POV but sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.

Female Character : Sydney is Sydney. She is improving as a person & character in each book. I love how she loves Adrian, he deserves it & so does she.

Storyline : I found it to be quite boring at times & found myself skimming through some of the more detail heavy & unexciting parts.
I don't mind having calm times in a story as you need it to balance the high tempo adventure but for me the quiet times were just boring and there weren't enough excitement to compensate for it.

Surrounding characters : I wanted to "Do away with" Zoe so badly!!!! And the rest of the alchemists while I was at it! Everyone else was there but not even one "big" event got me excited :(

POV : Alternating between Sydney & Adrian.

Series cont : My OCD won't let me not finish this series LOL

nicole3654's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

majse21's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This series just keeps getting better. I really enjoyed this book. The book kept me interested and wanted to know what happens next. I enjoy that we get Adrian's pov as well as Sydney's.

In this book, Sydney and Adrian try to navigate being in a relationship and trying to hide it from the Alchemists.
Sydney keeps practising magic, and this is part of why she is questioning the Alchemists' teaching.
Adrian is really struggling with the side effects of spirit. He tries to get help to deal with it.
In the book, they start working with the former Alchemist Marcus Finch. Who tries to save other Alchemists that no longer completely believe the Alchemist teachings.

This book also gives us a look into the relationship between Sydney and her sister Zoe. Zoe is an Alchemist who does everything to get their fathers approval.

The ending of the story was written in a gripping and very captivating way. I was crying and couldn't stop reading. I needed to know what happened.