Reviews

What an awesome ending to the first arc of Wings of Fire! While I guessed quite a few of the plot twists, the pacing of this one was the perfect balance between intense and followable. It brought all of the main cast of the arc together as well as a great ensemble of new characters. The final chapter is also a great introduction in what to expect from the next arc.

ericawrites's review against another edition

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4.0

The Brightest Night was a satisfying wrap-up to the first arc in Wings of Fire.

As a character, Sunny needed a growth path on her own and to expand from her belief in them as prophecy fulfillers to dragons who can change their culture. She needed to do this on her. Unfortunately, it meant that in our last book, we didn't see Sunny interacting and changing the inner group dynamics among her friends as she was mostly on her own.

Sunny is the character most attached to non-violent methods, and she has to be the one to figure it out. <spoilers>Of course, while Sunny does not use violence, Thorn, Burn, and Blister do. While our hero dragons don't come away unscathed (interestingly enough, our boy dragons Clay and Starflight are disabled, and none of the girl dragons are harmed physically), we don't have any deaths amongst our crew. Even as the dragons memorialize those who died, I'm unsure how much readers cared about those dragons. Tsunami's killing of her father (unbeknownst to her and in a manipulated POW gladiatorial ring) still stood out as the most personally horrific to our five heroes.</spoilers>

I don't know how I feel about expanding the Scavenger interactions here and bringing humans into the story. Though, seriously, the dragons should realize that Scavengers are intelligent if they can do art! (Me pointing at the "AI" (aka LLM copy machines) that cannot do art, and some humans are convinced can replace artists.)

I wanted more of Sunny and Thorn, as having a healthy parent-child relationship was nice.

The epilogue quickly tried to wrap up too many other details and set up for the next part of the series. <spoilers>Queen Scarlet still alive means she will continue as a big bad or play a red herring. </spoilers>

schasesears's review against another edition

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5.0

Definitely the best book in the first subseries of the Wings of Fire saga. I loved the climax. I love this author's engaging writing style.

marcostheallstar's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.25

this is a very interesting book my favorite part was when it turns out that thorn is star flight mom.I wish it had a little more fight scenes. i recomend this to readers who like plot twist and surprises.oen quick note if u like this one and have not read the others i recomend them.

okamihylia's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-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

4.0

This is personally my 2nd favorite book from this arc, just under The Hidden Kingdom. Sunny is also hands down my favorite Dragonet of Destiny so I was very much looking forward to seeing her have the spotlight in this book. As someone who struggles with having others take me seriously because of my bubbly personality and having people talk over me frequently, I radiate with her as a character. I love how just like Starflight in his book, she grows as a character to stop being complacent thanks to her safeguard being removed from the book prior and now she has to take the initiative to stop this war when it seems the others have seemingly lost hope and her insecurities on full display. This book's whole symbolic message about the theme of self-acceptance, accepting others and everything that touches on society, and social mixing between people is something I think is very important for kids to learn. I think the ending is a little messy and a little too convenient in terms of just, hoping stuff will go right and that's where it lost some points with me for being higher than a 4-star rating. I will say the buildup to the climax is extremely tense, with having three specific characters all in the same place for the first time and you know stuff is about to go down. And that does seem to be what I hear quite a lot of from other fans as well (about the conveniences to rush the ending). But that didn't do much to deter my love for this book. As a finale to this arc, it did make me cry.

Content Warnings

paola_malagrida's review against another edition

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5.0

I'm very pleased with this ending.

Sunny has a LOT of thoughts and at some point I got tired, but it was funny to try to discover what was going to happen, and I think I did it very well.

I figured out that Sunny was just half Sandwing, I was thinking maybe she was half Icewing, but then they mentioned Stonemover and I thought that maybe he was Sunny's father and...he was. Also, I compared Sunny with the Icewings and I felt like something was similar, maybe her face, but it was not, she has Nightwings' snout, tail and little white points. It was very interesting.

Then, the end of the war, I knew it was Blister all along, and I'm very happy about Thorn being the new Queen.

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