Weeks after his crucifixion and rebirth as Phoenix, Ash Fisher believes his troubles are far behind him. He and Natalie are engaged and life seems good. But his happiness is short-lived when he receives a threatening visit from Purian Rose, who gives Ash an ultimatum: vote in favor of Rose’s Law permanently relegating Darklings to the wrong side of the wall or Natalie will be killed.
The decision seems obvious to Ash; he must save Natalie. But when Ash learns about The Tenth, a new and deadly concentration camp where the Darklings would be sent, the choice doesn’t seem so simple. Unable to ignore his conscience, Ash votes against Rose’s Law, signing Natalie’s death warrant and putting a troubled nation back into the throes of bloody battle.
I loved the first installment in this series for a lot of different reasons. I liked the relatable characters, the interesting mix of politics, racism/species-ism, supernatural happenings, and forbidden love, and the always exciting twists and turns the story was making.
Not that Phoenix didn't have all of that, but it wasn't "up there" with the first book, not by a long shot.
It starts off really exciting, with everyone wondering whether or not the vote for Rose's Law (which we find out later will totally screw over all the Darklings by sending them to a worse concentration camp than when they were warring). Then the anty gets upped when Purian Rose himself threatens to hurt Natalie, who is newly engaged to our hero, Ash Fisher, half-Darkling and rebellion symbol/leader, Black Phoenix, if he doesn't vote to support Rose's Law, which obvi he can't do! Then there's a crazy turn, and basically Ash, Natalie, and all of their friends need to get their butts out of Black City, and quick.
For some reason the Bastet (half-cat humanoid with a deadly-to-Darkling venom) boy that Natalie saved from experimentation in Black City is thrown into the mix. His name is Elijah, and there's some weird crap about a weapon that his missing mother supposedly has that can totally turn the rebellion around and send the government running scared. This sounds very convenient, except for the fact that Elijah's mother has gone missing, along with her good friend Lucinda, who just happens to be Ash's aunt.
There's more about this second installment that annoyed/frustrated me than there was that was super exciting and entertaining (so basically the exact opposite of Black City):
1. Basically, once Ash, Natalie, and Elijah left Black City, the book took a long and unnecessary amount of time and pages to get back to something relatively important and interesting. A majority of the "drama" in this book, which was boring relationship bullshit, could have been completely avoided if Natalie had been smart.
2. If you read Black City, you know that at the end of the book, there's this crazy fight going on and Natalie gets bitten by some little shit Darkling brat from the ghetto...where all the diseased, Wrath-ridden Darklings live. Now, if you've ever read any sort of thriller/mystery book before, you know that nothing like that ever gets written into a book unless it's going to come back to bite the characters in the butt later on. So it was no surprise to anyone who's ever read a book over a 3rd grade reading level that Natalie was going to contract Wrath.
Now some of you may be like "oh, but she's a human, and humans don't succumb to Wrath, their just carriers, it's no big deal!", well no, because it is a big deal. Because, as we learned in the last book, Natalie has a half-Darkling's heart in her chest, so she's got Darkling particles in her body, making her susceptible to Darkling diseases.
So all of the drama in the middle of this book comes from Natalie being too scared to tell Ash that she has Wrath, thinking he'll break up with her because of it. By keeping this secret, Ash thinks that she's got something going on with Elijah, bringing about the classic, love-triangle-drama that YA authors like to pull out when they've got a happy couple and a sequel novel to get through.
So that's two things, the avoidable drama and being predictable.
3. The time period/fashion/era of this world is still not explained. Once in a while the fashions will be mentioned and it just doesn't seem to make sense, because it's all, like, Victorian steampunk corsets and sportcoat vests, while there's all this crazy technology like tablet/digipads for TV/info, Transporter and Destroyer Ships that seem like high-tech hover vehicle prisions, and yet there are no cars, or cell phones, but there are telephones. It's just very confusing, and I'd really appreciate some sort of "guide to the times."
4. Just like the last time there was a romantic rival for Ash and Natalie, Giselle is completely pointless.
Please don't get me wrong; while I was disappointed in this book after the powerhouse of a novel Black City was, it was still really well-written, interesting and exciting, and the first and the third parts were really action-packed and full of constant turns and struggles. Even the second part was pretty cool because we finally got a glimpse of the Barren Lands we heard about from the Darkling wars, and the characters spent some time in the concentration camp where the Wrath was created which was super cool.
And then the book ends by giving the reader weird situation after weird situation, wondering what the F**K is happening and wondering if these we will ever know what is going on because the impossible is happening right now, and characters are throwing themselves into dangerous situations when they don't have to.
Overall Impression:
I got the impression that there is definitely a great story hiding out under all the the stuff that this book built on top of it. I definitely look at this book as a bridge to get from the awesomeness of book one to what i can hope will be a heart-stopping amazingness of book three. Unfortunately that means a less than perfect book two, but you know what, it's a pretty decent bridge if book three delivers like I have faith it will.
Blonde's Rating: 4/5
Amazon's Rating: 4.3/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.2/5
Thanks for reading,
The Blonde
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