Fire Falling by Elise Kova

Themes: YA fantasy, romance

The review

In the line of Air Awakens, Fire Falling is a good fantasy sequel without much to impress the reader. Using a familiar trope, this book is picking where the first one left us and we embark on a long journey across the empire. Fortunately, Air Awakens set up the basis of the worldbuilding and we can now focus on discovering more about it and the characters. But if I hoped to see these ones evolve, I was cruelly disappointed. Aldrik was a bit better than before but still had an awful (even toxic) behaviour with Vhalla. And when I thought during the first chapters that the latter would grow a bit, well this idea was quickly shattered. She is supposed to have a bain and a lot of knowledge from her readings but seems to have forgotten all about them.

That’s why I globally preferred the secondary characters that felt less stereotypical. I especially admired Larel for being so patient with Vhalla (I would have given up if I were in her place). I did not care about the characters so much that when one of them died, I felt nothing (when I cried my eyes out for a death happening in the first chapters of Crescent City…). Even worse, I did not understand this death since I thought it brought nothing to the story apart from an easy resolution.

In brief: this book didn’t surprise me, either in good or bad. It’s not awful but I really hope we’ll have more complex and credible plot and characters in the next books (that I’ll read since I already own them). Still, I enjoyed the writing which was good enough to transport me in another world and to make me really understand what was going on in Vhalla’s head (and so her potential evolution in book three).

My rating: 3,5/5