Scan barcode
A review by anneliseb23
Together We Burn by Isabel Ibañez
3.0
Really great premise, unique magic system, good world-building but the execution was just a little lacking. I wish the magic system and guilds were more developed - the former was pretty interesting, we just didn't see a lot of it; the latter would have helped with the plot's predictability. I wish there were more dragons, and I wish Zarela had more of a "see the light" moment in terms of how dragons are treated in this world (note: they are not treated well).
The characters were okay. They lacked depth and I didn't buy the romance between Zarela and Arturo. I also remember I am an adult and not the target audience for this YA novel but they admitted to loving each other after a month (?) not entirely sure how much time passed, but it was not very long - may have even been only a few weeks. But over the course of this ~month, Zarela and Arturo were more combative and snarky with one another than anything else. He's grumpy and she's stubborn and they insult one another for 75% of the book, kiss once, then love each other. They argue so much because they have fundamentally different views as to how dragons should be treated (i.e. he believes they should be cared for/protected, she believes they should be killed for sport and "art"), but this kind of just goes away once they admit they're down bad for each other. They were kind of boring when together. They really only had one moment where they got to know each other more deeply. It just wasn't a very believable progression of the relationship. I think even my YA self would have been bored and unconvinced of this relationship.
I wish the other characters, like Lola and Guillermo, had some more page time!
There was quite a bit of Spanish throughout the book too. I thought this was fine since I took Spanish classes for a while and still remember the basics, but this might throw off readers who don't know the language. Although the gist of the Spanish was typically stated in English after, that didn't always happen, and it wasn't always abundantly clear what was just said. It's a good way to learn some Spanish though!
The characters were okay. They lacked depth and I didn't buy the romance between Zarela and Arturo. I also remember I am an adult and not the target audience for this YA novel but they admitted to loving each other after a month (?) not entirely sure how much time passed, but it was not very long - may have even been only a few weeks. But over the course of this ~month, Zarela and Arturo were more combative and snarky with one another than anything else. He's grumpy and she's stubborn and they insult one another for 75% of the book, kiss once, then love each other. They argue so much because they have fundamentally different views as to how dragons should be treated (i.e. he believes they should be cared for/protected, she believes they should be killed for sport and "art"), but this kind of just goes away once they admit they're down bad for each other. They were kind of boring when together. They really only had one moment where they got to know each other more deeply. It just wasn't a very believable progression of the relationship. I think even my YA self would have been bored and unconvinced of this relationship.
I wish the other characters, like Lola and Guillermo, had some more page time!
There was quite a bit of Spanish throughout the book too. I thought this was fine since I took Spanish classes for a while and still remember the basics, but this might throw off readers who don't know the language. Although the gist of the Spanish was typically stated in English after, that didn't always happen, and it wasn't always abundantly clear what was just said. It's a good way to learn some Spanish though!