A review by rnilky
Rise of the Phoenix by J.L. Madore

  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

3 stars because I love the wolf boy.
In all seriousness, this book is fine? I’ll be honest and say that it didn’t do a *great* job introducing the main overarching plot line(1). I find that this happens a lot in other books though so I’ll kinda let it slide. I’m sure other people have mentioned Hawk’s not so awesome statements about Calli’s past situation, I didn’t at first grasp what he was specifically getting at (what can I say, I’m kinda dense) but after I did find out.. yea that’s pretty gross of him. Of the four male leads, I only really like Kotah (I listened to the audiobook idk how to spell their names very sorry). Kotah is Native American and is at one point described as exotic and that rubbed me the wrong way. I’m kinda rambling as most of my complaints are rather minor but the book just left me feeling kind of meh.
(1) I wanted to specify what I meant by the plot thing, so here it is. Basically, the five leads have been bonded together in order to restore a doorway to the original fae realm. That is supposed to be their main goal. Hardly a single situation that occurs in the first book gets them any closer to achieving that goal. Instead they focus on Calli’s revenge subplot and have a little party? Idk man
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