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_gnawknee's review against another edition
1.0
Female main is insufferable. Male love interest is a bad person and dumb as rocks. The behavior and thought process would make sense if they were 13-14 years old.
problunaaa's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
ekate2's review against another edition
1.0
I really want it to love this story especially because of my obsession with Harry Potter and Hunger Games but it was just too inconsistent for me. One second Sophia is an adult and then she’s a little child. I don’t feel like the author really thought about their target audience because it comes off as middle grade with new adult sprinkled in. It also moved way to slow for me.
I listened to this as an audiobook and I think the voices of the characters helped make it a bad experience as well; especially the man’s voice. It didn’t go with the character. I hate not finishing stories but I was just so irritated with the long monologues and the personality changes.
I listened to this as an audiobook and I think the voices of the characters helped make it a bad experience as well; especially the man’s voice. It didn’t go with the character. I hate not finishing stories but I was just so irritated with the long monologues and the personality changes.
lexistrickett's review against another edition
4.0
The story has so much potential. The characters could have more development, more detail could go into the story background, and sadly the readers in the audio book just didn’t do a great job of story telling for me.
bookaddict32's review against another edition
5.0
The end thought!!!
This is so good... Holler I just found this randomly and I am really happy. I love all stories that get me a vibe of Harry Potter. It really intriguing... I mean the whole time you get the vine they want her dead or something... I don't trust anyone... At all... The end was not a shocker but will definitely get a new side of the story... Did is so unfair but if it would be there wouldn't be a story to tell... I am 100% sure of her mission I just don't know how she will do it.
Magic
Ancestors
Familiars
A bitch that thinks too highly of herself
A teacher that makes my brain scream don't trust her...
And forbidden romance
Great combination for a great story.
This is so good... Holler I just found this randomly and I am really happy. I love all stories that get me a vibe of Harry Potter. It really intriguing... I mean the whole time you get the vine they want her dead or something... I don't trust anyone... At all... The end was not a shocker but will definitely get a new side of the story... Did is so unfair but if it would be there wouldn't be a story to tell... I am 100% sure of her mission I just don't know how she will do it.
Magic
Ancestors
Familiars
A bitch that thinks too highly of herself
A teacher that makes my brain scream don't trust her...
And forbidden romance
Great combination for a great story.
christinaatl's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
hiyya's review against another edition
1.0
Before I get into why this book made me physically ill, I want to commend some characters, relationships and plot points I enjoyed.
Imogen was a standout in the book. The authors wrote her to be the main character’s best friend, and she was just that. I enjoyed her vulnerability in the cave, and genuinely just wish it was written a lot better, to show the real impact of her brother’s death. Her relationship with Cade was very cute and felt like a breath of fresh air after watching the abomination that is Liam and Sophia’s relationship. I am interested to see where they end up and might continue reading the series just for them. I liked Bane, but felt they could’ve done even more with him. He didn’t seem smart or special, he just seemed lucky. He didn’t teach them anything and was quite useless. If he did teach them something they never showed it in the book.
I also enjoyed how they handled the impact of Sophia’s upbringing, but wish they were more consistent. For every other character, death is such a natural part of the Elementai life, but Sophia was raised human, she isn’t used to deadly tournaments and teenagers dying left and right. She hasn’t grown up in an environment where young death is normal. I’m happy they had some sort of continuity with this, but I wish there was even more distress. She saw someone get burned alive, but her reaction was boring. She just got a little angry and chased Haley. I think she should’ve raised hell. I wish it was more painful for her, like physically painful. I think all the characters should’ve been affected more.
The elemental trials were for the most part engaging and felt challenging. The fire trial was a lot for my brain to handle, as I was trying to keep up with all the chaos happening, and was curious about how they were going to get through it. The prophecy being split up between tribes is something I found intriguing. I want to know what the true prophecy is, because we all know Koigni is not the house they are referring to.
Okay, so that’s the good stuff, time for the bad stuff.
Let’s start with the element that ruins most ya fantasy novels. The characters. The Fire Prophecy is not the first book to have unbearable main characters but wow I think Liam needs to get beaten up.
Liam Mitoh is probably the most insufferable protagonist I have ever had the displeasure of knowing. He constantly plays into the stereotype of a ‘bad boy’ in such an obvious and shameless way, that it makes me nauseous. Liam is, bottom line, an asshole. His character has gone through a lot, mourning the death of his familiar, living now disabled and an outcast. The first chapter of the book is a short chapter from his point of view, where he tells us he wants to die. We can sympathise with his situation, and understand to an extent, why he acts the way he acts. That doesn’t mean he gets to be a wuss 100% of the time.
Liam is honestly so annoying, and it gets on my nerves to the point where I was ready for him to die in that fire. His obsession with Sophia is a huge continuity error and makes him a very unreliable narrator, but not as a device used by the authors. His use of the word Pawee, which we find out means soulmate, leads us AND Sophia to believe that Liam knew Sophia was his soulmate from the very beginning. This is an actual load of bull and does not make any sense. Multiple times throughout the book, Liam says that Sophia is annoying, that she latches onto him in class and it pisses him off. He tries to avoid her as soon as he’s rid of her. He picks so many fights with her and judges her for being new to being an Elementai. Sure, he checks her out every so often but that’s IT. Why would he be calling her his soulmate and then think that she’s so annoying and slow? A point of view cannot be a conscious lie to the audience. Liam cannot just gaslight his thoughts, unless he knows that he is gaslighting his thoughts.
Both Sophia and Liam move too quickly into their immediate attraction to one another. Not just physical attraction but romantic attraction. The romantic attraction is just so off-putting because their relationship doesn’t develop, it feels unnatural and uncomfortable. From the get-go, they are into each other, for no reason. Sure I believe in just being attracted to someone, but for a reader to support a relationship, and connect with the couple, the authors need to show us the couple’s chemistry.
Liam and Sophia DON’T have chemistry, and that leads to my first fatal flaw in this novel. The main thing we are supposed to be rooting for, the love between these two characters, is not strong enough to keep the reader engaged. The authors have failed to create a relationship worthy of support. They’re not interesting, or cute, or entertaining. They’re just both obsessed with each other and it’s unnatural. A good relationship is a relationship the reader can root for, because they love the characters, and they love them even more when they are together.
What makes them BOTH so annoying, is the way they describe each other. They put each other on this huge pedestal and it’s just really weird. Why do they like each other so much, why are they in love? It just hasn’t been developed properly, we don’t get real intimacy between them. Their relationship is so simple that it seems like this book was written for children, which can’t be true because of all the sexual innuendos.
The other HUGE problem with this book is it’s predictability. It was too easy for the reader, too simple. It was aggravating for it to take so long for a character to figure out what they needed to do. A good example of this is their last session with Bane, where they have to defeat his huge and powerful familiar. The solution was quite obvious, so seeing them struggle for so long was infuriating. Liam being smug all the time was just annoying because I thought he was dumb af. The flow of the story itself is very hard for the reader to wrap their head around. It felt like some parts dragged on and important parts were too short.
The plot twists and secrets in the book were all very predictable. Anything we couldn’t guess was because it was out of nowhere. By the time we got to Sophia finding her strong ass powers, I was already so exhausted from the predictability of the story that it honestly didn’t amaze me, or make me root for her. It was also not a shock that they won the cup seeing as they bumped into Haley who would’ve been coming first.
I will continue to read this series I think, just to see where Imogen ends up, and find out the real prophecy. Maybe the next books will be a lot better, and I won’t want to burn it in my hands.
Imogen was a standout in the book. The authors wrote her to be the main character’s best friend, and she was just that. I enjoyed her vulnerability in the cave, and genuinely just wish it was written a lot better, to show the real impact of her brother’s death. Her relationship with Cade was very cute and felt like a breath of fresh air after watching the abomination that is Liam and Sophia’s relationship. I am interested to see where they end up and might continue reading the series just for them. I liked Bane, but felt they could’ve done even more with him. He didn’t seem smart or special, he just seemed lucky. He didn’t teach them anything and was quite useless. If he did teach them something they never showed it in the book.
I also enjoyed how they handled the impact of Sophia’s upbringing, but wish they were more consistent. For every other character, death is such a natural part of the Elementai life, but Sophia was raised human, she isn’t used to deadly tournaments and teenagers dying left and right. She hasn’t grown up in an environment where young death is normal. I’m happy they had some sort of continuity with this, but I wish there was even more distress. She saw someone get burned alive, but her reaction was boring. She just got a little angry and chased Haley. I think she should’ve raised hell. I wish it was more painful for her, like physically painful. I think all the characters should’ve been affected more.
The elemental trials were for the most part engaging and felt challenging. The fire trial was a lot for my brain to handle, as I was trying to keep up with all the chaos happening, and was curious about how they were going to get through it. The prophecy being split up between tribes is something I found intriguing. I want to know what the true prophecy is, because we all know Koigni is not the house they are referring to.
Okay, so that’s the good stuff, time for the bad stuff.
Let’s start with the element that ruins most ya fantasy novels. The characters. The Fire Prophecy is not the first book to have unbearable main characters but wow I think Liam needs to get beaten up.
Liam Mitoh is probably the most insufferable protagonist I have ever had the displeasure of knowing. He constantly plays into the stereotype of a ‘bad boy’ in such an obvious and shameless way, that it makes me nauseous. Liam is, bottom line, an asshole. His character has gone through a lot, mourning the death of his familiar, living now disabled and an outcast. The first chapter of the book is a short chapter from his point of view, where he tells us he wants to die. We can sympathise with his situation, and understand to an extent, why he acts the way he acts. That doesn’t mean he gets to be a wuss 100% of the time.
Liam is honestly so annoying, and it gets on my nerves to the point where I was ready for him to die in that fire. His obsession with Sophia is a huge continuity error and makes him a very unreliable narrator, but not as a device used by the authors. His use of the word Pawee, which we find out means soulmate, leads us AND Sophia to believe that Liam knew Sophia was his soulmate from the very beginning. This is an actual load of bull and does not make any sense. Multiple times throughout the book, Liam says that Sophia is annoying, that she latches onto him in class and it pisses him off. He tries to avoid her as soon as he’s rid of her. He picks so many fights with her and judges her for being new to being an Elementai. Sure, he checks her out every so often but that’s IT. Why would he be calling her his soulmate and then think that she’s so annoying and slow? A point of view cannot be a conscious lie to the audience. Liam cannot just gaslight his thoughts, unless he knows that he is gaslighting his thoughts.
Both Sophia and Liam move too quickly into their immediate attraction to one another. Not just physical attraction but romantic attraction. The romantic attraction is just so off-putting because their relationship doesn’t develop, it feels unnatural and uncomfortable. From the get-go, they are into each other, for no reason. Sure I believe in just being attracted to someone, but for a reader to support a relationship, and connect with the couple, the authors need to show us the couple’s chemistry.
Liam and Sophia DON’T have chemistry, and that leads to my first fatal flaw in this novel. The main thing we are supposed to be rooting for, the love between these two characters, is not strong enough to keep the reader engaged. The authors have failed to create a relationship worthy of support. They’re not interesting, or cute, or entertaining. They’re just both obsessed with each other and it’s unnatural. A good relationship is a relationship the reader can root for, because they love the characters, and they love them even more when they are together.
What makes them BOTH so annoying, is the way they describe each other. They put each other on this huge pedestal and it’s just really weird. Why do they like each other so much, why are they in love? It just hasn’t been developed properly, we don’t get real intimacy between them. Their relationship is so simple that it seems like this book was written for children, which can’t be true because of all the sexual innuendos.
The other HUGE problem with this book is it’s predictability. It was too easy for the reader, too simple. It was aggravating for it to take so long for a character to figure out what they needed to do. A good example of this is their last session with Bane, where they have to defeat his huge and powerful familiar. The solution was quite obvious, so seeing them struggle for so long was infuriating. Liam being smug all the time was just annoying because I thought he was dumb af. The flow of the story itself is very hard for the reader to wrap their head around. It felt like some parts dragged on and important parts were too short.
The plot twists and secrets in the book were all very predictable. Anything we couldn’t guess was because it was out of nowhere. By the time we got to Sophia finding her strong ass powers, I was already so exhausted from the predictability of the story that it honestly didn’t amaze me, or make me root for her. It was also not a shock that they won the cup seeing as they bumped into Haley who would’ve been coming first.
I will continue to read this series I think, just to see where Imogen ends up, and find out the real prophecy. Maybe the next books will be a lot better, and I won’t want to burn it in my hands.
snoopydoo77's review against another edition
1.0
I dnfed the book at 30 percent and that was much further than I should have read, but I figured it will get better.
I really didn't want to DNF it because it had so much potential and could have been so much fun and such a great book, but instead it read like a badly written Harry Potter fanfic.
The characters were so over the top and it was so easy to spot who does what and when and where and even the why.
Overall, I I'm sad because the high potential wasted but also mad that I invested my time into and it didn't get one smudge better...
I hope her future books are a bit better thought out and edited.
Sadly, for me this is a 1 star DNF.
I really didn't want to DNF it because it had so much potential and could have been so much fun and such a great book, but instead it read like a badly written Harry Potter fanfic.
The characters were so over the top and it was so easy to spot who does what and when and where and even the why.
Overall, I I'm sad because the high potential wasted but also mad that I invested my time into and it didn't get one smudge better...
I hope her future books are a bit better thought out and edited.
Sadly, for me this is a 1 star DNF.