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A review by ros_lanta
Flamefall by Rosaria Munda
5.0
There are a lot of SFF books out there which deal with rebellions and revolutions against a corrupt government or ruler. Something which is rarely reflected in these books, at least in my experience, is how often in real world history the governments which have succeeded the revolution end up with similar problems of tyranny, corruption, inequality and violence to the ones they replaced.
The Aurelian Cycle confronts this head on and it is superbly executed by Munda. There are so many shades of grey in this trilogy, with characters forced to make awful choices and young people raised in the wake of the revolution slowly realising that they have not necessarily been told the truth about it.
It's also a very personal story about friendships and romance and finding out who you are and who you want to be. The characters feel incredibly real to me, and because of that, everything they go through hits me hard. This trilogy is emotional and heartbreaking.
If the above seems like a review of the Aurelian Cycle rather than Flamefall alone, it's because I can't separate them. Nearly everything I loved about Flamefall, I also loved about Fireborne. Flamefall does introduce new characters, with a new point of view character appearing at the beginning who I instantly cared about - the book starts strong and keeps going. My only criticism, if I can call it that, is that there is some miscommunication caused by characters not talking to each other, but while I find it frustrating to read, it also feels believable for what the characters are going through.
I have to wait a couple of weeks before I can get hold of the third and final book of the trilogy, and considering how book two ended, I will be counting down the minutes.
The Aurelian Cycle confronts this head on and it is superbly executed by Munda. There are so many shades of grey in this trilogy, with characters forced to make awful choices and young people raised in the wake of the revolution slowly realising that they have not necessarily been told the truth about it.
It's also a very personal story about friendships and romance and finding out who you are and who you want to be. The characters feel incredibly real to me, and because of that, everything they go through hits me hard. This trilogy is emotional and heartbreaking.
If the above seems like a review of the Aurelian Cycle rather than Flamefall alone, it's because I can't separate them. Nearly everything I loved about Flamefall, I also loved about Fireborne. Flamefall does introduce new characters, with a new point of view character appearing at the beginning who I instantly cared about - the book starts strong and keeps going. My only criticism, if I can call it that, is that there is some miscommunication caused by characters not talking to each other, but while I find it frustrating to read, it also feels believable for what the characters are going through.
I have to wait a couple of weeks before I can get hold of the third and final book of the trilogy, and considering how book two ended, I will be counting down the minutes.